


something i've been keeping locked away behind my lips

by solo (gay_wristwatch)



Series: the truth runs wild/like the rain to the sea [1]
Category: Girl Defined - Bethany Baird & Kristen Clark, The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Becca Gilroy Lives, Character Study, Coming Out, Divorce, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/F, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Masturbation, Religious Conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:13:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29547765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gay_wristwatch/pseuds/solo
Summary: Shelby's married, a leader in her church, everything she's supposed to be. She's dedicated to living a godly lifestyle, and she's been doing the best she can. Yet all it takes is one encounter with a stranger in the park to set her on a path that threatens to destroy all of that.
Relationships: Andrew/Shelby Goodkind, Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Series: the truth runs wild/like the rain to the sea [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200833
Comments: 114
Kudos: 419





	1. how to proselytize in a god-honoring way

**Author's Note:**

> so in this AU, the island never happened. shelby married andrew right after college, and now she (by extension Toni, Martha, etc) is somewhere in her mid 20s. they're all in texas.

Shelby stepped out of her house, smiling and waving cheerfully at Kristen from her porch as she checked the lock and made her way to her friend's car. It was a gorgeous day, one fact Shelby had already given thanks for during her morning devotionals.

"Hey girl," Shelby said as she sat down. Kristen squeezed her shoulder as she moved her hand to the headrest of Shelby's seat, preparing to back the car up out of Shelby’s driveway.

As soon as she closed the door of the sedan, Kristen nodded toward the iced coffee waiting for her in one of the cupholders. Kristen's sat between her legs, Shelby noticed, where condensation from the plastic cup (caving slightly from the pressure of Kristen's thighs required to keep it in place as she maneuvered the vehicle) glistened on the skin of her thighs. Shelby snapped her eyes away and inhaled sharply at the sight, hoping Kristen would interpret it as nothing, if she noticed at all. Maybe she’d just think Shelby was excited to drink her coffee—it was hot as blazes today in Texas, naturally.

What wasn't quite natural--as far as Kristen was concerned, at least--was the unusually short length of the other woman's shorts. Not short enough to be worth mentioning, but definitely not her usual lower-mid-thigh fare.

This was solidly mid-thigh material, currently a bit shorter because Kristen was sitting.

That’s when Shelby caught herself. Here she was, sitting in her friend's car, not paying an ounce of real attention to Kristen's idle comments as she drove. She was instead paying a ridiculous amount of attention to the tall blonde's legs. _Disgusting_ , a part of Shelby whispered. She felt flushed, from the heat, the view, and now, a flash of shame.

That’s how many of her moments with her struggle with same-sex attraction went, unfortunately. Something catches her eye (or, unfortunately, even her ear—Shelby had realized a while ago that she could even be attracted to a woman’s voice—she had no idea if that was normal or not), and she has to have a small internal battle about it after she notices what she noticed. She was tempted to call the whole struggle a curse, sometimes, but she just tried to remember that God never gave anyone more than they can handle.

She shook her head and tried to focus on what was actually happening. The music, set quite low on the radio, caught Shelby's ear.

"Can I turn this up?"

"For sure," Kristen replied.

Soon, they were singing along to one of their church's favored worship songs, and what with the beautiful day, Shelby couldn't help but feel better, ready to put the impure thoughts in the car behind her and share God's word.

She and Kristen were often the ones that put young women's events together for their church. Today, they’d planned a short get-together in the park, followed by sharing the gospel. The two of them spent a lot of time together, though Shelby oddly felt like they couldn't really call themselves very close friends. They never seemed to really open up to each other, though the pair had had some emotional moments at various bible studies and whatnot. Briefly, as Shelby and Kristen scoped out a decent spot for their group on the grass and set up a blanket to sit on, Shelby realized she didn't really open up to anyone in her life, not even Andrew. Not about the things that really got to her, or that she really struggled with.

Shelby suppressed the desire to scoff at herself. She ought to enjoy the day and be grateful, not brood about nothing. She had a great life, and being positive was always better than digging into negativity.

"Thank you Jesus for this gorgeous day," she remarked aloud, half to get out of her own head, and half because she knew that the comment would stimulate small talk among Kristen and the two other older teenagers that had shown up so far. Shelby chatted them up effortlessly as they sat and waited for the rest of the group.

Plenty of people were out taking advantage of the clear skies and, Shelby surmised, the fact that it was a Saturday morning. Andy was out with her daddy and Spencer, supporting Spence at his baseball game before getting ready to grill at her parents' house. Here, families lounged in the grass--there were so many adorable kids running around--and people ran, walked, and rode their bikes along the various paths that intersected the park. Shelby had to be careful where she looked--apparently most of the exercising populace was going as topless as possible today.

Eventually, their group was complete, and they all joined hands to pray for a fruitful time spent spreading the gospel. Kristen's hand ended up in hers, which ended up mildly distracting Shelby throughout the prayer. It wouldn't have even been that bad if she weren't frustrated about her mind noticing that fact or reacting to it at all--but like, literally why did this have to happen? It's Kristen. Shelby didn't even really feel--well, attracted to her enough for her to even consider it a real problem, unlike with some other girls in the past.

It was like she was just attractive enough for Shelby to notice, but (thankfully) she wasn't that big of a problem. Still a problem, though. Annoying, like a constant niggling test of her will.

But they had to work together, and Kristen was a good influence. When the prayer was over, Shelby dropped Kristen's hand as fast as she could manage without raising suspicion, and immediately moved to break the younger members of the group into pairs and sent them off into the park with tracts and water bottles to give out. Shelby, Kristen, and the older members would be going out on their own.

"Remember to text if you need anything!" Kristen called out to the pairs as they walked off. "Be bold!" Then, she turned and smiled at Shelby. "Ready?"

"Sure am," Shelby replied. "This sort of thing is always exciting, no matter how many times I do it."

"So true. I'll see you back at our spot," Kristen said. Shelby turned her attention to the people around her, looking for a suitable person to talk to. Families were basically no good, since they were basically always busy. Couples or single people were good. People in the middle of exercising were also a horrible choice--basically a 100% chance of being ignored.

Shelby approached a few people here and there, surprised that her heart did not seem to be fully into it. Maybe she was just off today. She figured the water bottles would be a good hook for the people that seemed to be done with their workout or walk, which proved to be a good tactic--one she'd have to remember to share with the group when they all reconvened.

That little tactic ended up being a huge mistake.

Shelby spotted a young woman, around her age, who was sitting mostly alone, except for when another woman came to talk to her in between bouts of exercise. After approaching the seated woman, Shelby introduced herself and asked if she'd like a free water.

"I'm just here with my church, givin' these out to people out on this beautiful--but hot!--day," Shelby explained, as she held out the bottle with its tract attached. 

"Oh, ok. Sure, I think Toni's water is running low," the young woman said.

"Great," Shelby started. "If you like, there's a card there with our services and location if you want to come out to a service. Only thing better than enjoying nature is getting to know the God that made it!"

Martha smiled. Not the tight smile that many gave her in an effort to get her off their back as soon as possible, but a smile that actually seemed real. "I probably won't, but thank you for the water," she replied.

Well. That kind of honesty was rare. Shelby was a bit taken aback, but she was about to reply, to explain that all were welcome or ask if Martha was already part of a church family, when they were interrupted by a rough voice out of view.

"She bothering you, Marty?"

Shelby turned her head to see that it was, unsurprisingly, the woman that seemed to be friends with Martha. _Marty's a cute nickname for a Martha,_ Shelby thought, just a split second before her train of thought was obliterated by the sight of the other woman up close.

Shelby had noticed her doing pull-ups on some of the park equipment earlier, had idly noted how impressive that was. She definitely hadn't been, like, appreciating the pumped musculature of the woman's smaller frame, or the sheen of her tan skin in the sunshine as she stood recovering--not to mention how the light and shadow from a nearby tree played on her skin when she was moving.

Good Lord.

And now, she was definitely not lost for words at the sight of the angles of her face, enhanced by the pony tail the woman wore her hair in.

Martha was speaking, now, thank God–Shelby snapped her eyes back to her.

"Oh, this is uh, Shelby, right?" Shelby nodded, hopefully not too dumbly. "This is Toni. Shelby was just telling me about her church. Gave me some water, too," Martha explained, holding up the bottle for Toni to see it.

"Great." Toni's tone said it was anything but, however. She did take the water after making sure Martha didn't want any, though, a conversation that seemed to happen without words. They must be close, Shelby noticed. Toni was eyeing her as she drank.

"Yeah, I was about to ask if y'all already go to church or..." Shelby trailed off, then looked to Marty for a response.

Toni scoffed, loudly, then looked off into the distance.

Martha, for her part, replied sweetly after shooting Toni a look. "No, that's not something either of us do."

"May I ask why?"

"'Cause the last thing I need is to adopt a fucking colonizer religion. Not like any of you in that church of yours could stand having anyone different from you in there with you anyway," Toni was staring Shelby down, now.

Truth be told, that was kind of a new one. She didn't really know what to say to that first part. Shelby went with one of her more practiced lines. "Well, I can tell you we are open to all joining us, no matter what background you come from."

Toni rolled her eyes. "Right. I saw you guys huddled up, before. All blonde or trying very hard to be. I'm not exactly convinced," she said.

Shelby laughed, uncomfortably. She wanted to leave, but Toni was so intense in the way she was challenging her, it felt impossible to just smile and walk away. "I promise we have more than white girls in our church," Shelby started. Then, she added (and this comment was probably ill-advised, in hindsight): "Maybe you should come check us out for yourself instead of judging."

Toni's eyes flashed. "Please. Poor Christians, being 'judged' after fucking centuries of preaching yourselves and everyone else to death, especially people like me--" Toni moved to point to her upper arm, where there was a small but visible tattoo of two interlocked Venus symbols. Didn't take much to put that one together. Shelby's heart was pounding, now, but Toni kept going. "I swear to God, the persecution complex with you people is huge. Why are you even here? Most people in this town are already Christian anyway. The answer is no; just leave us alone."

Shelby pursed her lips, aware that a good amount of people had started staring at them. She muttered, weakly, "alright--I hope y'all have a blessed day," before turning and practically scurrying away. Kristen was by her side nearly immediately, casting a concerned glance back and forth between Martha and Toni's spot and Shelby.

"Hey, that looked like it got intense, are you okay?" Kristen moved to put her arm around Shelby, but without thinking, Shelby shrugged it off. She took a couple deep breaths, now feeling the burn that had probably been present on her face for a while now.

"Yeah. Yeah, of course. Just...I've never really had anyone tear into me like that before," Shelby admitted. That had to be it. And that was part of it, honestly. Just not the whole thing.

"She's just defensive," Kristen said, tone soothing. "That's what we do when we want to keep sinning but we're confronted with the truth," she continued.

"I know," Shelby started, wanting to put the whole thing behind her. The encounter had rattled her, but she didn't want to show Kristen just how much. "We ready to go?"

"Everyone else has gone on their own, either home or just doin' their thing in the park," Kristen explained. "So we can go."

As much as Shelby wanted to be alone after that, she had to put on a face that didn't betray anything, and head over to her parents' after a quick stop at home to pick up the food she'd prepped for the gathering.  She could only manage to partially tune in to Kristen’s rambling about her social media feed and the videos she needed to shoot as they pulled away from the park.


	2. how to work out in a god-honoring way

When they arrived back at Shelby's house, Kristen and Shelby had a short discussion about their plans for the coming week. They said their goodbyes and Kristen took off, but not before taking a selfie with Shelby in the car to post along with some pictures and videos from their day so far. Shelby could respect Kristen for the whole Girl Defined thing--she's honestly not sure how she deals with the pressure. And they had good material for young Christian girls. Her mama had basically plugged Melody into the videos as soon as she was old enough.

Shelby used to dress in a way they definitely wouldn't have approved of when she was younger, but with Kristen's example had cleaned up her act some. Not that she even really wanted to wear crop tops and the like anymore--Andrew always got extra handsy whenever she did so, and on some level the desire to had been trained out of her.

That was one thing that Shelby could admit to herself openly. Her marriage with Andrew was not great. Marriage was seriously hyped up by communities like hers, but Shelby figured she just wasn't the type that all those promises could pan out for. She had unfortunately given in to the pressure when he'd proposed after their college graduation--and once she'd said yes, she couldn't go back, at least not realistically. She figured he was her best option though--leaving him would definitely bring some scrutiny from her parents, who knew about her struggles with same-sex attraction. And he wasn't a bad guy. They got along well enough, especially when Shelby went along with him and focused on what he wanted to talk about or do, and he didn't even pester her too often for sex anymore. That was one of his saving graces, actually--he seemed to get the hint that she wasn't interested in going there with him, after a while.

Their relationship had been carried by pressure and the initial buzz of going through all the motions of dating, but most of that had fizzled out by now. All the advice she'd seen and heard for someone like her was to just wait and pray and do her best to be a good wife; maybe one day the feelings would come. Fake it 'til you make it, if you will. Queue Bible verses about how it's better to be married than single and struggling with temptation, et cetera.

Only a few years had passed and yet Shelby was pretty certain this was just how God had made her; this part of life was just her cross to bear. And hey, even Kristen wasn't totally "satisfied" with her marriage.

Shelby sighed as she moved the dishes she'd cooked from the fridge into a cooler, checking the time on the oven clock as she did so. 1:35. As much as she didn't want to have to be the Shelby her family expected in a few minutes, she had to get going. Shelby prayed before she left, though, for Toni and Martha, and for herself, hoping it’d clear her mind.

Through the afternoon with her family, Shelby was mostly distracted from her mood and her brain's apparent desire to run Toni's words through her head over and over, but she apparently still seemed off.

She ended up brushing off her mom inquiring about her state of mind four times over the course of the afternoon before finally placating her with a white lie--which of course came with instant guilt.

"Sure you're alright, honey?" Shelby was helping her mom clean up by now, while the boys (there was only one boy, really: Spencer and two men) played catch with a football in the yard.

"Yeah, it's just--it's just my period, ma, don't worry," Shelby said. That wasn't it, but her mother had no way of knowing, of course. Jobeth stopped for a second, looking sympathetic. _Oh, please, God no--_

"It'll happen one of these days. I know it," her mom said. It seemed cryptic, but Shelby knew exactly what she meant and had to fight to avoid rolling her eyes like a teenager. Like most aspects of her life, her parents assumed a great deal and had certain expectations. In this case: pregnancy and grandchildren.

Unfortunately, Jobeth Goodkind wasn't finished. "Maybe you should talk to Kristen about this, finally, you know? She probably knows some good doctors for this sort of thing,"

"Ma, I just don't think we're ready, okay? We've got time," Shelby said, hoping that she'd just drop it. "It'll happen when it happens."

Her mother had no idea that she was using contraception of any kind--most forms (and even the idea itself) were frowned upon by their community, especially for young married couples like Andrew and Shelby. Shelby had been shocked but pleasantly surprised when Andrew himself had insisted on using condoms after they got married. She told no one about her own implant.

Shelby had no idea what she'd do when the pressure really came down to have kids, to see a fertility specialist, or even to adopt, but the only thing she could really do at the moment was push for more time, which was easy at her age.

Jobeth said nothing, just sort of hummed and let the topic go. Shelby was pretty grateful that her mother was not combative in the least.

Eventually, she got a little more mileage out of the same excuse she'd used earlier, claiming she was tired, and she left without Andrew even though she was supposed to be his ride. Dad could drop him off, though. The alone time she got was a double-edged sword, however: now she had the freedom to obsess over what had happened with Martha and Toni.

\---—

"I don't know if you had to go off on her like that, Toni," Martha remarked as she and Toni watched Shelby and her friend walk away.

"You know I'm right. And I just can't stand the fact that they're trying to convert people like, actively. With little booklets and bottles of water. And I wasn't even that bad," Toni said, before draining more water from the bottle. "I gotta stretch a bit, but are you ready to go?"

"Yeah," Martha began. "But she's just trying to do what she thinks is right, you know? And besides, not all Christians are homophobic."

"My ass," Toni quipped from her position on the ground, reaching for her toes. The woman had actually nodded back toward her ass as she said it. Martha couldn't help her laughter.

"No, really. It can be a denomination thing. I know you won't set foot in a church, but I've been to one with a friend before. The priest was a lesbian," Martha explained.

"Nice. Well they're fine on that count, I guess," Toni admitted. Martha seemed satisfied, and went back to her book while she waited for Toni to finish.

"Do you know what kind of church she's from? Honestly she was hot, apart from the whole likely-homophobe thing," Toni mused.

"Oh Jesus." Martha retrieved the card and tract stapled together from the ground. "Well it doesn't look Unitarian." A beat. "I don't really know, it's just called Fort Travis Fellowship."

"So odds are I was right about her, at least," Toni replied, smirking up at Martha.

Martha leveled Toni with a dry, withering look. "If I say yes, will you let it go?”

Toni was a lot better with her emotions and letting things go now compared to her younger years. Time and some therapy (and, honestly, just getting the fuck out of the system) had done a lot for her. She pretended to think before answering.

"Probably not." They shared a laugh, and headed back to their apartment.

Toni flipped through the tract with Martha later and laughed even more.

—

After returning home alone, she'd decided to relax with a glass of wine and half-heartedly watch some television. That apparently wasn't enough of a distraction, though, because she ended up browsing Instagram a few minutes into the episode of _The Bachelor_ that had been playing while she gazed in the general direction of the screen.

Kristen had posted about their outing. Shelby scrolled through the photos. Their selfie from earlier, then a few shots of the girls talking to people, a shot of the box of tracts and water bottles, and a shot of her, Martha, and Toni from a distance. Shelby gave the requisite like and dropped a comment about how good the day had been, etc.

Then she made the mistake of scrolling through some of the other comments. She'd appeared in the periphery of Girl Defined media once or twice, but since she mostly knew Kristen, Shelby only really featured on her personal account here and there. Below a few comments from the other girls she’d tagged and Kristen’s family sat a few gems:

_this has gf energy for sure lmao_

_several dozen rainbow flag emoji_ (that one almost made her laugh despite herself, just at the sheer amount)

_u 2 look cute together, nice going girl_

Kristen--her entire family, really--weren't any strangers to endless amounts of comments from people that just seemed to want to mock them on the internet. They tried to mostly ignore them, moderate their comment sections, but of course the flow of trolls was too fast and consistent to really control without locking everything down, which would be really bad for the brand. In her rare rants on the subject, Kristen seemed to latch on to the fact that all the engagement from people that just wanted to "bring them down" was actually helping.

The best (worst) part was that all of the trolls were 100% convinced that every person involved with Girl Defined was straight up gay, or at least they were dedicated to insinuating as much.

Normally comments like those would be deleted, but she figured Kristen was busy, oh, having dinner with her husband or something. Just Shelby's luck to naively check out the comments without thinking. Her mind flashed back, inevitably, to Toni's tattoo.

To Toni's tattoo and...her arms, which had flexed as she moved them to point to the symbol—Shelby put a stop to that train of thought right there and set her wine aside. Those two could be a dangerous combination. 

She had mulled the woman's rant over a few times by now. and decided she wasn't to blame for the long and varied history of her religion, but if she looked at it from a non-believer's point of view, she could see how all that looked pretty bad. Shelby sure wished Toni hadn't gotten so aggressive, but she could understand her points, see why she was upset.

None of that really made her feel better, though--and Shelby realized it was because she hadn't been bothered or offended by any of that in the moment--that wasn't why she felt so off-kilter since. It was because she'd never been confronted by someone...like that.

Someone out, secure enough in their identity to get a tattoo and confront someone else they thought was against that part of them. God, the irony. Why did it have to be Shelby that had approached Martha, if anyone?

Shelby wasn't open with her struggles, and that was kind of par for the course with the people like her in her church, few and far between as they were. And they never identified as anything, really, because labeling yourself as "gay" or anything else was giving in. She only really even knew the handful there were because her daddy led some groups to help them out. Those were for men, though, so Shelby had never joined them, probably couldn't have brought herself to unless forced.

Of course, she'd stumbled upon the odd pride photo and saw celebrities that were out and _proud_ , but their town wasn't Austin or anything by any means. She almost never saw anyone that broke the mold just at a glance. As much as Toni seemed like trouble for someone like Shelby, she was also kind of a marvel.

The comments, her revelation of what was dragging her mind back to Toni again and again, and her _thoughts_ toward Kristen earlier caused the sensation of a pit opening in her stomach. Shelby wished, not for the first time by any means, that she had some way of just forgetting about all of this, or of erasing the way she felt somehow, so she could just be normal.

She knew that was impossible by now, though. She'd read all the books and perspectives her dad had in his office and knew she'd just have to deal with this for...the rest of her life.

The sounds of Andrew coming home startled her out of her thoughts, and she found herself grateful for the distraction, and even more grateful when he declared himself “zonked" and went to bed on his own.

—

The next morning, after a typical church service, Shelby felt mildly renewed. She spent some time working the desk of her daddy's spinning gym, All Rise Cycling. Helping out with the family business was the closest she got to being employed; everything she did for her church was really on a volunteer basis. She didn't even really need to work, with her family's resources and Andrew's job, not in this little town in southern Texas. Naturally, she was really _supposed_ to have had children by now, and when she did she'd be a stay-at-home mom, like her own mother.

But again, she didn't have kids, and didn't plan to any time soon. To fill some time, Shelby worked out regularly. She'd actually just taken a spin class herself, but she felt somewhat restless and wanted something more, as much energy as those classes tended to burn on their own.

After finishing her "shift," Shelby went back home and snagged Andrew's gym pass for the gym with actual free weights and machines.

When she arrived, she decided to just use some of the upper body machines. There'd always been a part of her holding her back from using weights too much, wary of ending up with too much muscle than was desirable for a pageant girl. Some were actually still necessary, though, and Shelby figured she couldn't go wrong with just one day of going a little heavier than usual to get out some of her frustrations.

Once she found a suitable basic workout through an app on her phone, Shelby found some heavier-than-usual dumbbells and set to work. Chest press, dumbbell curls, tricep dips, and finally, a dumbbell front raise. That last exercise was kind of putting her shoulders through the ringer, but she was determined to push through, grimacing through the strain and--pain?

"Ah!" Shelby winced, lowering the dumbbells and hurriedly placing them on the floor before rubbing her left shoulder, rotating the joint and her arms to alleviate the feeling of the strained muscle.

"Gotta be careful with those," a rough voice remarked from what sounded like a ways away. Wait, she knew that voice… _I’ll be damned. Again?_

Shelby sighed and turned to meet her interlocutor, who'd walked closer to her and stopped like ten feet away.

"Hello again," Shelby drawled, unsure what to say or what the woman wanted. Her hand stilled on her shoulder as she tried to _not_ gawk at Toni in her black muscle tee. _Is God testing me? Is that what's happening right now?_

Toni seemed to shrug off the greeting. "If you overdid it, we've got ice packs for members to use."

Wait, what?

Toni had already moved to walk away and continue whatever she was doing, but Shelby found her voice in time to ask: "You work here?"

"Yep. Personal trainer," she explained, somewhat curtly. Shelby realized the other woman couldn't go off on a customer, which was probably the only reason she was bothering to answer Shelby instead of sending her off with some very different answers.

"Huh," Shelby replied, mind working. She'd never seen Toni here before despite coming maybe once or twice a week for years. "So you're new to the gym, then?"

"...Yes." Shelby took that as the end of the conversation on Toni's end, but the gym was pretty empty and if Toni had just been watching her, apparently she didn't have too much to do. She pushed on.

"A couple things," she started. "I wanted to apologize for offendin' you yesterday." Toni looked up at that, and seemed both surprised and confused, and maybe a little irritated again. _What did I do this time?_

"Thanks? Weren't you kind of just doing your thing though? Why apologize?"

"Just...felt like I should," Shelby shrugged lightly.

"Maybe try self-flagellating less," Toni grumbled. She crossed her arms. "And? What's the other thing?"

Shelby cleared her throat. "Well, I was wonderin' if you..." Shelby hesitated. _Am I really about to do this?_ _Seems unwise... Or, maybe I'm just makin' things right._ She could use this as a chance to show Toni what someone striving to live like Christ is really like. And that's what Christ did, anyway, right? Jesus hung out with people the rest of the religious folk of the time avoided like the plague. "I was wonderin' if you had any room in your schedule for a new client," Shelby said.

Toni's eyes widened marginally as she processed the question. "Wh--" Toni cut herself off from whatever she was about to say and started again. "I do, since I'm new and all," she said, too evenly.

"Great. You have a card or something? I'd like you to train me," Shelby didn't know what it was about that last phrase that sounded salacious to her as she said it, but she rushed to explain herself further. "You know, I don't use weights much so I don't really know what I'm doin'...you saw for yourself. And I'm willing to bet you're one of, if not the only female trainer here. I'd feel a lot more comfortable with you over some guy."

"Right. Well, I actually have this time slot open today, Tuesday, and Thursdays." Toni seemed to search for the days in her head, which softened the tough look she had going with her stance and folded arms. After all the aggression yesterday, and the gruff, mostly-professional attitude she'd gotten today, the sight was endearing even if Shelby didn't want to admit it.

"Great," Shelby said, smiling. "I know we got off on the wrong foot but I'm sure this will work out."

"Nice one," Toni said, actually smirking and shaking her head a little before she walked off to the front desk. Shelby'd nearly forgotten about her shoulder until Toni practically shoved an ice pack at her as she was leaving. “RICE that shoulder,” she instructed.

Shelby didn't actually get the pun she’d accidentally made until she was halfway home.

Unbeknownst to Shelby, Toni had sent Martha a message as soon as the blonde had left.

\- _guess who my new client is_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RICE = Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation
> 
> and if you were wondering, yes, there really are bible verses about just getting married instead of risking sexual immorality!


	3. how to get off in a god-honoring way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the delay on this chapter, i needed some time to work out plot details. turns out i got a little ahead of myself posting it so fast. i've written ahead now though, so chapters will come every other day.

Shelby ended up changing her outfit three times before she went over to the gym on Tuesday. She did her best to tamp down on the swirl of anxiety and excitement in her chest, which she attributed to the fact that she was going to spending time with someone new. There was also the fact that she actually didn't know what to expect, now that she thought about it. She settled on light make-up, leggings, and one of the racerback tank tops she favored for jogging and cycling.

She had half a mind to call the gym and cancel her appointment and all future ones, but that felt both immature and cowardly. Sure, the feeling she had as she sat in her parked car in the gym parking lot was far too similar to pre-pageant jitters, but she'd never not gotten up on stage because of those. Shelby squared her shoulders and sat up tall, which felt a little silly in the confines of her vehicle, but made her feel marginally better anyway. She figured that with time, just like with most of her pageant experience, the nerves would calm once she knew what to expect.

She was a few minutes early, as always—punctuality was practically a genetic Goodkind trait. Shelby took a gym mirror selfie and looked around the, again, mostly empty gym. There were a handful of people today, an improvement on the three or so patrons that had been around on Sunday.

Finally, Toni emerged from the door marked Employees Only, scanned the room, and made her way directly to Shelby after spotting her. She seemed to size the blonde up for a moment or two before fiddling with the bulky fitness watch on her wrist. Shelby tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear, unsure what to say to get the ball rolling between them.

"Hey," Toni said, off-handedly. After a few seconds, she looked up again and Shelby realized she'd just been standing there.

"Hi," Shelby said quickly, feeling a bit caught out. What the blazes was going on with her?

Toni was intimidating, that was it. And of course, having been on the receiving end of her ire already, it was understandable that she'd be more awkward, or at least uncertain, than usual. The thing Shelby noticed, but refused to take conscious note of, was the fact that the woman was dressed in a similar outfit to the one she'd sported on Sunday, and something about her tough, tomboyish manner and smaller frame was distracting to say the least.

"Okay, so since this is our first time, I've gotta run through a basic assessment with you. I'll explain the program we'll run through later, after we figure out where you are. Let's head over to the cardio equipment," Toni said, before leading Shelby over to the various treadmills and bikes and ellipticals and--whatever other contraptions were over here. Toni posted up next to a treadmill and Shelby stepped onto it wordlessly, awaiting her instructions.

"Set it at a pace we can talk at, even if it's just walking," Toni said. Shelby hit the requisite buttons and got going.

As she started to get into the rhythm of moving her arms and legs after she found the right speed, Shelby began to feel self-conscious for a reason she hadn't acknowledged until now--until she was right in front of Toni.

Toni, the...lesbian. Is she going to look at me the way I've been trying not to look at her?

Her heart rate definitely spiked in a way that had nothing to do with the light exercise; she decided to not consult the mirrors ahead and to the side to see how much her thoughts were causing her face to redden. She couldn't really look at Toni, either; that would be even worse. Her eyes took turns gazing at the floor ahead, the treadmill controls and the TV on the wall. Several seconds passed, and Shelby was sure that Toni's eyes had been on her the whole time. Which was understandable and totally fine. That's what she's supposed to be doing.

"You don't seem out of shape. What's your exercise routine like now?"

"I jog and spin, mostly," Shelby answered easily. "Sometimes I do, like, workout videos on Youtube." If they were talking, she could apparently manage to glance at Toni intermittently. 

Toni nodded. "You spin at that place in town, All Rise, or whatever?"

"Yeah--" Toni moved, leaning to peek at the timer on the treadmill's display. "I-My daddy owns that place," Shelby admitted. That seemed to take Toni off guard, but her surprised eyebrows lowered back down quickly.

"Your actual father or..." Shelby sputtered at that, then scoffed, while Toni smirked, suppressed outright laughter, and generally seemed to revel in Shelby's discomfort with the joke. "Well?"

"My actual father," Shelby deadpanned.

"So you want more resistance training to go with all that cardio? Or are you training for something specific?"

"The first one," Shelby replied. Toni nodded, checked the time again, then brought Shelby over to an open area of the gym with mats.

"I'm gonna show you the rest of what I want you to do to warm up for our sessions, now," Toni explained. "Just do like five minutes on the treadmill or whatever machine you want, then these dynamic stretches and light exercises."

"Alright," Shelby said, watching Toni, but trying to keep focused on what she was actually doing, and not how she looked doing it. It was admittedly a bit easier without the pump Toni'd had going the first time she'd seen her.

"That shoulder still hurting?" Shelby was feeling...unusually shy, at least when it came to actually speaking and not just regressing to "Simon Says,” so she only shook her head no. "Cool. This is what I like best to warm up the shoulders," Toni began before demonstrating.

Toni ran her through ways to warm up her upper and lower body, as well as some extras. Shelby was on the fence on the issue of whether or not these sessions were going to drive her insane, being "forced" to look at the deliberate way Toni was moving, to listen to her showing her expertise, and to endure Toni evaluating Shelby's own movements.

She was actually kind of torn as to what the worst yet had been--it was definitely between the squats and the hip drill. So far. Shelby didn't want to think about what it meant that both of the instances where it had been hardest to keep her thoughts where they should be involved legs and, well, loathe as she was to even think it: ass. Or as Toni apparently called it, booty.

"For this one, you're going to get on all fours, tuck the booty, and then move one leg at a time in a circle, both directions."

Worse, Shelby wasn't sure if she ended up more flustered watching Toni show her the movement or when Toni was watching her. She reflexively pleaded, Lord Jesus help me in her mind, but some part of Shelby felt like it was too little, too late. She knew she was going to feel plenty guilty for her gaze and her feelings during this whole ordeal, but she wasn't sure if she should feel guilty for setting it all up in the first place. She wondered if she was doing a good enough job hiding what was going through her head, if Toni noticed. And naturally, the totally illogical thought that Toni knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling, like a mind reader, passed through her mind as well.

When they were done, Shelby took a deep breath, feeling she could do so without being questioned since, well, that was pretty commonplace after moving around.

"Alright, you're ready to go. We'll do the warm-up together for now until you can remember all the exercises and get the form down." With that said, Toni moved on to explaining the basic strength program she was going to put Shelby on. "These are sort of basic things we're going to build up your strength with. Do you have any particular strength goals? Any equipment you want or don't want to use?"

Shelby couldn't really think of any. "I basically just want to not be weak? Which is vague, but I don't really know what a specific goal would be, really."

"Can you do a pull-up?" With the mere mention of the exercise, Shelby recalled the day she met Toni again.

"I, uh, no. Never have," Shelby answered.

"I think that's a good goal, if you're down for it," Toni said. "Not insanely difficult, but you'll definitely gain upper body strength for it, and it'll be a bit of a journey. We’ll work on your lower body strength some to help out with all that cardio, too.”

"Fine by me."

Toni checked her watch, then gestured for Shelby to follow her to a different area of the gym. "So let's figure out where you are strength-wise." She picked up a ten-pound dumbbell, then paused. "What weight were you using before?"

"Oh." Shelby thought back. "I think they were fifteens," she replied.

Toni nodded. "We're going down to ten." Toni put her through a circuit with upper body and lower body exercises, had her go on various machines to help her get a feel of how they worked and what they did, and eventually showed her a handful of stretches she should do at the end of every workout. Things were going better than before, Shelby realized. As much as Toni's direct instruction in Toni's rough voice was a (sinful) pleasure to listen to, she actually had to pay attention and put effort into what she being told to do, so despite the fact that her face was probably the same hue of red as it was before she'd even started breaking a sweat, she wasn't feeling as flustered as before. 

When their time seemed to be up, Toni checked her watch and announced it. "Time's up. See you Thursday," she said, before basically taking off.

Shelby had kind of expected a "good job," or something like that, but she figured Toni probably wasn't up to giving that to her. Why did she even care? Not like she'd done anything spectacular anyway, and the curt goodbye was better than nothing. In terms of, you know, politeness.

Shelby looked at her watch again even though she knew the time. She had to get back and get ready for dinner and Bible study at Kristen's house, which she was going to help her cook (which, historically, meant cooking dinner herself--Kristen was better as far away from the preparation of food as possible, despite having been the primary cook in her own home for years on end). 

—

After a shower (cold), Shelby made her way to Kristen's. While they prepped their meal, they discussed the usual: church, Girl Defined, their families, and their husbands. There wasn't usually much new in their lives, not directly anyway, so the topics of conversation stayed pretty static. Shelby sometimes wondered what the other woman did with her time that wasn't centered around those four topics. Shelby’s life wasn't so different, but she did...well, what? She practiced her vocals for church and was reacquainting herself with the guitar after not playing much for a while. She worked out. And, well, she filled the time with reading and other...things. Did her time spent at All Rise count? Sometimes it felt like she had a gaping hole in her life, but she knew that if she brought it up to anyone, especially Kristen, they’d probably attribute it to Shelby’s lack of children. Maybe she just needed to spend more time in the Word or find something new to do at church.

Kristen was cutting open a bag of vegetables when she huffed and put the shears she was holding down on the counter. "Can I just vent for a minute?"

"Sure," Shelby said, looking up briefly from what she was doing on the stove.

"So, you know how people tend to leave nasty comments on all of our stuff," Kristen started.

"Mhmm," Shelby hummed.

"Yeah. So there's been this whole drama lately...someone found some older articles we deleted, and they're all trying to like, cancel us for it, even though it was years ago and we deleted them."

Shelby was mildly curious now. "What were the articles about?"

"It was just a few articles about the homosexual agenda, and how we as Christians should respond to it, you know? But I swear, girl, it's like once they decide they're...gay, or whatever else--who can keep up these days--they go nuts on anyone that just has different beliefs," Kristen complained.

So the issue was exactly what Shelby had been hoping it wasn't. Great. She turned away from Kristen, fumbling for something to do to seem casual, and settled on getting herself a glass of water. She could feel Kristen's expectation for a response.

"Then the drama is just that a whole bunch more people are findin' out about them?"

"Yeah, I guess. We basically have been shutting down all our comment sections, all they do is spam about it. Which is better than dealing with being called a 'homophobe' and--I don't even get this one--'racist', but no engagement on our posts..." Kristen was still talking, but Shelby kind of checked out; her mind was starting to race along with her heartbeat. This feeling, the one she got any time the rare discussions of sexuality in her community turned to sexual orientation, was familiar but never easy to endure. She was starting to feel like she had run several miles just standing there in Kristen's kitchen.

Kristen saying her name brought her attention back to the woman's rant. "And get this, Shelby. They keep posting about us. Like, you know. Together."

This can't be happening. "That's ridiculous," she choked out.

"Obviously! They just love to attack godly people, you know. But I just remember what Pastor said, during one sermon: they're gonna reap what they sow, you know? Which for them...won't be anything good. Ugh. I try to pray for them, but it can be hard."

Shelby said nothing, opting to wait out the rest of anything that was coming. As much as part of her wanted to break into a lecture about how you never know what someone is struggling with, she didn't really feel like confronting this with another person that couldn't understand. And talking that way would probably be a dead giveaway about her own struggles.

"So anyway," Kristen started after checking her phone, "What time will Andrew be here? Zack is gonna be home any minute,"

"Let me check," Shelby said, reaching for her own phone and finding she actually already had a text from Andrew waiting for her.

Andy

\- hey baby [baby emoji], can't make it tonight, something came up at work so i gotta stay late

Shelby rolled her eyes internally at the message, locking her phone without replying. She knew he didn't really like Zack, and was probably just lying to avoid coming. What was more annoying, however, was that she would be left alone with the couple for the rest of the evening, unexpectedly.

"Looks like something came up at work, actually...so you're stuck with just me," Shelby said. Kristen gave her an apologetic look, but Zack opened the front door at that moment, and they moved to plate the food and sit down for dinner.

When she got home, Andrew offered a half-hearted apology and story that at least seemed legitimate about what kept him at work, so Shelby told him everything was alright. She wasn't sure she cared enough to do anything but let it go, not to mention that she didn't mind not having him around, awful as that might sound.

Shelby knew she was going to end up looking up the drama with Kristen and Bethany's old blog posts as soon as Kristen had mentioned them. With Andrew still doing whatever he was doing downstairs, she went through her nightly routine and laid in bed to dive into their old posts on her phone.

Their stuff wasn't her thing, considering her age, so she never really read their stuff. She perused the links that she'd found on someone's tumblr calling them out, scrolling through the archived articles and cringing to herself. Worse than the writing style and poorly reasoned arguments (gay people aren't a race, Kristen? Really?), though, was the feeling of hurt and loneliness that came over Shelby when she finally gave up and tossed her phone away in disgust. She'd just come from spending hours with this woman, as she did many days a week.

Then, Shelby's conscience supplied her with a reminder of what she'd been doing before heading over to Kristen's. She'd basically been drooling over her personal trainer for an hour. She had her issues with Kristen's views, sure, but Shelby had to focus on her own issues. Maybe the fact that Kristen brought all that up was God pushing her back in the right direction. Shelby sighed, feeling swayed, and grabbed her phone again to take a look at some of the quotes and notes she had saved to help her through moments like these. She repeated a familiar phrase: God, give me strength to be what you intended.

—

Those words had never done anything but serve as an empty mantra, really. Shelby clung to them but knew by now they didn't change much, except perhaps help alleviate some of her guilt--she was at least trying, right? Either way, when Shelby was back at the gym on Thursday warming up under Toni's supervision, she knew she felt the exact same sensations as she had two days ago.

Soon, the training sessions faded into her usual routine, and Shelby started seeing results too. Andrew had made a few comments, "jokingly" warning her to not "turn into a bodybuilder or something, gross," and he seemed inordinately relieved when he learned her trainer was a woman, but otherwise, she was happy that she'd taken strength training a little more seriously.

There was the perennial problem of her trainer's attractiveness, but Shelby had settled a little, becoming somewhat used to the way she was pulled to the woman. As long as she didn't do anything about it or savor Toni and her tank tops too much, she was fine.

Everything was fine.

That was ostensibly true until one day, when Toni walked into the gym, on time as usual--but sporting a much different look. Shelby's breath caught when she saw the woman in a white basketball jersey, shorts, and what Shelby was pretty sure were basketball shoes. Toni had apparently just toweled off a bit, but still seemed fresh from whatever she'd been doing.

"Hope you can excuse all this," Toni said, gesturing to herself. "Had a bet to settle with some of my coworkers," she explained.

"Oh," Shelby said, intelligently, as she processed Toni's words a little slowly. "I uh, would have loved to see that," she continued, before what she'd just said truly dawned on her.

Toni seemed amused. "I get that a lot," she said, all smooth and cocky.

"I'm guessing you won," Shelby replied, a smile creeping onto her face despite her embarrassment.

"Yep." Toni nodded toward the treadmill and moved her hands to her hips. "Enough about me. Let's get started."

—

Shelby found herself on a mission as soon as she got in her car to drive back home after spending an hour with Toni looking like that.

When she was a teenager, Shelby used to use the shower head to masturbate, but her dad replaced the movable shower head, citing something about how it would help save water. Shelby had no idea how that was supposed to work; she'd always assumed that he knew what she was using it for. Then she started to using the jets in the hot tub on their deck, though eventually she got used to managing things with her own hands.

When she and Andrew moved in to this house she’d asked him to install the kind of shower head she liked.

Almost no women in her church groups or anything ever admitted to feeling anything sexual, ever. Not that she did, either, so she figured either everyone was keeping things under wraps or she really was some kind of sexual deviant. Either way, she almost never managed to hold back, and the guilt associated with masturbation itself melted away with time. After all, the Bible says don't lust, not don't get off. At some point, Shelby had started reasoning that she could separate the two, thus she only felt guilt for what she ended up thinking about when she masturbated, especially when she actually got into things (as opposed to, well, maintenance). 

Shelby pulled up to her house and unlocked the door quickly, heading straight for her master bathroom. 

She knew this wasn't gonna be her best moment, but she could feel guilty later. She shucked her clothing hastily, turned the shower on, and when she was ready, Shelby aimed the flow of water at her clit and didn't bother trying to be quiet or to restrain her fantasies of Toni.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd love to know what you think in the comments, dear reader :)


	4. how to argue in a god-honoring way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> halfway there!

After that first time in the shower pleasuring herself to thoughts of Toni unabashedly, it was like a dam broke for Shelby. As weeks passed and she continued to train and do everything her church and family life demanded of her, on altogether too many nights of those weeks, she found herself indulging in how much her body seems to react to Toni. Oddly, Shelby noticed that a great deal of her fantasies weren't even terribly explicit—not that she even really knew what to expect there—they tended to be fairly innocent on the surface.

She knew what set her off because the wash of feeling that came over her in the moment was unmistakable. It was usually some outfit of Toni's or some characteristic of hers (all of which were already very attractive) that was exaggerated or highlighted that day: Toni with an unusually hoarse voice that she blamed on yelling at a basketball game, or Toni showing up that one Thursday in a sports bra and open coaches jacket, allowing Shelby glimpses of her stomach…the list goes on.

In her mind, she fixated on conjured moments where they were alone, impossibly alone, and free to do whatever felt right. The feeling of Toni's hand guiding her through an exercise to correct or maintain her form when things got harder translated to imagining that hand elsewhere. The small of her back, her thigh, her face.

And yeah, her ass too, sometimes. 

Shelby knew on some level what all that meant. She wasn't _just_ lusting after Toni's body (although she was definitely doing that), she seemed to want...more with the woman. Which was impossible and something Shelby could never attempt to make happen, of course. What she was doing now was enough, and was all she could permit herself. The shame and guilt were melting away as her activities became somewhat mundane, internally. What she did feel was the heavy weight of her secret, the one she’d carried most of her life now, compounded by Toni and all that she made Shelby feel.

And somehow, the idea of stopping never seemed viable. Before she’d married Andrew, Shelby had sometimes gone through the trouble of avoiding or putting a stop to activities that had women she felt drawn to. There had always been something else to do or another friend to make in college and high school anyway. But in this life, the one she led now? 

That didn’t feel like an option.

—

One night, Kristen asked her over for dinner, but "just us girls." When she got there, she was surprised to notice that Kristen had poured them both glasses of wine.

“Hey, thanks for coming,” Kristen greeted her, opening the door wide so Shelby could come in.

“Oh, you don’t need to thank me. Where's Mr. Zachary?" Shelby settled on Kristen's couch after Kristen had sat down and grabbed her glass of wine.

"He's on a trip for work, some kind of convention," Kristen mumbled.

"Alright," Shelby said. Something seemed off, but Kristen didn't seem like she was going to speak up any time soon. "Is something wrong?”

“No, no…So, I thought we could order in," Kristen said. "Whatever you want."

"Oh. Alright," Shelby repeated. More silence. "Kristen, honey, what's going on?"

"I just wanted to talk, but I'm not sure where to start," Kristen replied, trailing off at the end.

"Take your time."

After another long moment of Kristen looking around the room and failing to drum up the words she needed, she pulled out her phone. "Maybe it's easier if I just show you." Then, Shelby was up off the couch and rounding the back of the chair Kristen sat in to look at her phone's screen. It was a video of Kristen talking to the camera during an Instagram live, discussing…sex. From a pretty personal perspective. _Did not expect to be going there tonight_.

Kristen was responding to a question from someone, presumably, and was describing how she actually had to fight against lust even while she was intimate with her husband. But that wasn't it, actually. The clip changed to Kristen describing her struggles with masturbation, and then it cut to a couple of instances where Kristen had said that her husband and her relationship don't satisfy her. So it was some kind of supercut, probably made to mock her.

"Kristen, I--" Shelby was going to say that she didn't know what to say, but Kristen saved her by cutting her off. The woman seemed more distraught than she had before the video played, so Shelby just listened. 

"I don't--What am I even supposed to do, Shelb? It's so hard, the temptation is so powerful, and it's like I try to do the right thing and...that doesn't help. So then I sort of...break, you know? But then I go back to trying to do keep my mind pure, and it's just this cycle that goes on and on..." Kristen took a breath. "And I don't know, sometimes the comments get to me, get me thinking things I shouldn't," she admitted.

"What kind of comments? What kinds of things? You can tell me," Shelby said softly as she sat back down on the couch. 

"Like, okay, there are tons of people claiming to be Christian that say that this is all super unhealthy--as if being some kind of slave to your desires is healthier, even if it weren't sinful--and that..." Kristen scoffed. "Well. Let's just leave it at that. I don't really want to get into what they tell me to do."

"Well, let's forget about them for now," Shelby began. "Do you feel like what you're doin' now, that...cycle, like that's healthy?"

Kristen just stared ahead. "I don't know," she said at last. Not a lot to work with.

"Well if I may, I'll say that to me it doesn't seem like you're doin' too well with this right now. So maybe it's not," Shelby reasoned.

"But I can't--what I need is to, you know, rely on God for strength. That's what this is. I've just always been too weak, this has to be meant to make me rely on him," Kristen argued. Something seemed to dawn on her. "What about you?"

Shelby considered playing coy, but figured forcing Kristen to spell things out would just be torturous for the both of them. Honesty was the best policy, at least as much as she could manage. "I...I've had a lot of the same feelings as you," she admitted. Kristen nodded.

"How do you," Kristen searched for words and ended up waving one hand in the air vaguely. "I don't know, deal?"

They were getting into dangerous territory for real now, but Shelby knew how to respond without revealing too much. "I just...take care of myself if I need to," she answered, attempting to be casual about it. She even threw a small shrug in.

Kristen was silent. "I--I don't see how that's okay, Shelby." Her tone seemed firmer and more sure than at any earlier point in this conversation.

"Why? I honestly don't see where--" (Shelby hesitated before this word, as only the Kristen on video had spoken it so far. But it seemed inevitable. And being open would probably make this easier, slightly less uncomfortable) "--masturbation is forbidden in the Bible. That Onan story is really about taking advantage of people, not fulfillin' your obligations, you know?”

Kristen seemed to mull Shelby's words over, and from what Shelby could see, she seemed to agree. "That--that makes sense, actually. I'm scared though, what if we're just trying to justify sin?"

"I don't think that's what I just did," Shelby replied, laughing dryly. "I think maybe there's just things that get passed down in churches that just...took a ride along with all the stuff that's right, but it's not actually correct or necessary or even a good idea." She believed what had just come out of her mouth, but feared that she might not just be talking about masturbating anymore. It also sounded...dangerously progressive.

"Totally, yeah. Like not drinking at all," Kristen said, eyes on her wine glass.

Shelby hummed her agreement, then got up and reached for her glass, untouched thus far. "Even Jesus drank wine. Technically this is Christlike," Shelby joked, attempting to lighten the mood. She took a sip and put her hand on Kristen's shoulder. "You'll figure out what's right for you, darlin'. Now," Shelby said, holding her hand out to pull Kristen up. "Let's order some food, yeah?"

They ended up going with the easy choice of pizza, and slipped back into discussing their usual lighter topics. They'd never really had a conversation like the one they'd just had before, and Shelby found she didn't mind. At least Kristen hadn't asked anything specific about Andrew; she had no idea how she'd tackle those convincingly.

—

The next morning, she accepted Kristen's invitation to grab coffee at a café in town, probably the most popular café, actually. Shelby grabbed their orders when they were ready while Kristen settled in at a table. Some of the youth group kids were going on a mission trip soon, and while neither Shelby nor Kristen would be going along this time, they needed to put the final touches on the organization of a few more fundraisers.

Everything was fine, for a while; the morning was pleasant and bright, the café was populated but not overwhelmingly busy, and Shelby was really digging her banana bread muffin.

Then, a familiar dark ponytail swooped into the corner of her vision, and without her permission her head turned to check if that was who she thought it was--Toni. And it was, actually. Toni, Martha, and two other people Shelby didn't know, because why would she?

For several minutes, Shelby glanced over at Toni, taking her in while trying not to stare or be obvious. This was the first the she was seeing Toni in casual clothing instead of athletic wear. Luckily, she was situated almost between Shelby and the large front-facing window of the café, so she could conceivably just be looking out the window, not at the gorgeous brunette with the sharp jawline and contagious laugh. _Oh Lord. Get a grip, Shelby,_ she reprimanded herself, and shook her head minutely.

Somehow, Kristen caught the movement and paused in the middle of what she'd been saying about fundraiser scheduling. "What's up? You don't like that idea?"

"Um, no, I just--it's nothing," Shelby managed. But she must not have been able to keep her reaction from showing when the woman sitting next to Toni seemed to announce that she had to go, and after they all said their goodbyes, bent down to Toni's level and kissed her cheek.

And not like, in a friendly way. She'd smiled down at Toni, reached down and cupped her face, and pressed a slow kiss to the personal trainer's face. Shelby couldn't see Toni's reaction, but Martha seemed to tease her mightily after the woman had walked away.

"I can't believe we've fallen so far," Kristen remarked, voice low. She was staring right along with Shelby, albeit for very different reasons. Shelby vaguely registered the comment underneath the rush of emotions she was forcing herself to contain after witnessing the kiss.

"What?" She whipped her head back to Kristen. The word came out more harshly than a neutral party would have said anything in this situation. _Great work, Goodkind. Keep it up._ "I mean," Shelby backpedalled, taking a covert breath to calm herself, "what do you mean?"

" _Us_ , our country, you know. Homosexuality and sexual deviance is just...rampant, I don't know how we've let ourselves fall so far from God's ways," Kristen commented casually, moving to take a sip of her drink after like she'd merely commented on the weather or décor. Shelby felt a spike of anger at her hair-trigger judgement, especially after she'd spent time talking the other woman through a something of an emotional crisis only the previous night. But then, Shelby remembered, Kristen didn't know who she was speaking to, really. That thought cooled Shelby, forced her to snap back into utter outward neutrality, as if she were able to view "homosexuality" from the outside in like Kristen and everyone else she knew.

"Oh," was the only thing she could think to say. When she turned back to look at Toni's table, she was shocked to find Toni, Martha, and even the guy with them looking right back at her. Shelby looked away instantly, but looked back nearly just as quickly. Toni's eyes narrowed at her, and even Martha didn't look pleased. That was apparently her limit, because Shelby was overtaken by the need to leave.

"Hey, we'll talk later, okay? I forgot I--I have somewhere to be," Shelby said quickly, grabbing her things and her drink in a flash and walking out of the door as fast as she could. She made it down to the intersection before she realized Kristen had picked her up once again, and while Fort Travis was small, it wasn't exactly made for walking. _Shit_. Shelby stopped, looked around despondently, and figured she might as well just call a taxi. 

And then Kristen was walking up to her, asking if she was okay--because Shelby totally forgot that Kristen had driven her here.

"Right, I'm sorry, um, can you just take me home then? I swear I'm fine, it's just--you know how you can sort of panic and scramble when you remember something time-sensitive?" Shelby explained, and the concerned look on Kristen's face melted away.

"Sure thing, girl," Kristen said.

—

On Sunday, post-church, Shelby made her way to the gym despite the interaction at the cafe and her nerves surrounding it. At this point she was beyond not knowing what she was feeling or being unsure about those feelings regarding Toni. The horrible part, the part that was starting to feel less and less bearable, was that she had beholden herself to not doing anything at all about it. _And once again, you're married,_ she reminded herself sardonically. She'd just sat next to Andrew for the entire church service after spending the morning with him, too. He had moved his arm around her shoulder during the service, and although her feelings on that habit of his weren't always straight up repulsion, she definitely felt it this morning.

Shelby was in her car, feeling like she'd been here before, all nerves and uncertainty before seeing Toni. She hadn't felt apprehension before though, not even before that first time. Sighing when she realized that she had no more time to waste, Shelby strode into the gym on time.

Toni was actually standing there waiting for her for once, but the way that she was practically glaring across the room with arms folded and eyes glued to Shelby shocked the blonde more than the fact that Toni was already there. Shelby approached Toni cautiously. How did this woman manage to be so intimidating when Shelby had a few inches on her?

"Hi, Toni," Shelby offered.

"We need to talk," Toni said, turning and walking away without bothering to check if Shelby was following. Of course she was.

Toni did turn to level her gaze at Shelby when she held the door to the _Employees Only_ room open, one strong arm splayed across the width of the door. Shelby resisted the sudden urge to gulp cartoonishly as she moved through the doorway, body frightfully close to Toni's as she passed by. The slam of the door after Toni let it go forced Shelby's heart to pound even harder for a handful of beats. Toni posted herself up several feet away from Shelby, who for her part, couldn't find it in herself to move an inch or indulge her past curiosity about what the room contained.

"Saturday. Want to explain why you were staring at me and Martha with your friend?" Toni sneered when she came to that last word.

"I-Nothing, I mean, no reason, I was just surprised--"

"To what? See some people that are actually happy with their lives minding their own business, unlike you and that fucking Girl Defined bitch?"

"Woah, Toni, I swear it's not like that--"

"You know, I may not have seen you, but Marty could see you the whole time, and she said you and your friend seemed to react pretty shittily when Fatin kissed my cheek. Which was a joke, by the way, not that either of you could get that instead of clutching your pearls."

"I..." Shelby had no response to that diatribe that wasn't a flat out confession of her...crush on Toni, but luckily Toni didn't seem to even care that she had nothing to say.

"Whatever. I brought you here to tell you I don't want a homophobe, much less an open one like you, for a client. I'm honestly surprised you managed to stomach being around me so long." Toni moved closer to Shelby, making her way to the door. "Today's session is cancelled, obviously."

"Toni, wait, you have to let me explain!" Toni was close enough that Shelby grabbed for the arm that had been reaching past her for the doorknob.

"What's there to explain?"

"That Kristen has her views, and I have mine," Shelby said. "You can't read my mind, can you?" _I'd be in a hell of a lot of trouble if you could._

Toni scoffed. "No, and if I could, I'd stay far away from whatever's going on up there." She rolled her eyes, but made no move to shove Shelby off or force her way past Shelby.

"So how can you just judge me that way? Don't I get the benefit of the doubt? I thought we were getting along, I was really enjoying--" Shelby hesitated, unsure how to put how she'd come to feel about her sessions and spending time with Toni, "--making progress with you."

"Because someone _not_ homophobic doesn't hang out with people like that. It's pretty simple," Toni narrowed her eyes at Shelby. "But maybe you're right. I can't read your mind." She finally took her hand off the doorknob and shook Shelby's hand off her arm, all while she lifted her chin in challenge and got in Shelby's face. "So, are you homophobic, Shelby? Or do you just want to keep me around hoping I'll finally come to Jesus from your example or whatever the fuck," Toni demanded.

"I...it's complicated," Shelby began, and Toni actually looked bewildered at the answer until she broke into a disbelieving smile and shook her head, taking a couple steps back.

"This is gonna be good," Toni said. Shelby shut her eyes and tried to collect herself for a brief moment, frustration rising at the other woman's reactions. How could she get out of this in one piece?

Her next words came out without much thought. "You don't understand, Toni, I can't be--I don't know, wavin' a rainbow flag or arguin' with everyone at church, okay? And--and I was raised a certain way, I have a life to live here, I can't live a life of sin," Shelby said, almost pleading through the frustration.

"I'm not asking you to wave a rainbow flag. Jesus, what is up with you people?" Toni shook her head again, looking away from Shelby, who had just realized what she'd said. "How could _not_ hating people be a sin!? Being against homophobia doesn't mean gay people expect you to like, drop everything and go have gay sex--" Toni stopped suddenly. "Wait."

Shelby was sure she looked terrified, but she felt like she was on the verge of crying, or running out, or otherwise doing something that would give her away or seem out-of-control. They both stayed silent as she averted her eyes and then turned away, trying to take deep breaths to soothe the lump in her throat.

"Holy shit...Shelby are _you_ \--"

"Yes! Yes, I am fucking gay!" Shelby had nearly shouted the first word, but quickly reduced her volume and she whirled on Toni and practically ground out the rest of her confession from barely a foot away.

"Shelby, Christ, being who you are isn't 'living a life of sin,' that's called living your fucking life," Toni still seemed as upset as before, though her demeanor toward Shelby herself had shifted.

"How many times--you really can't understand, okay? You, you're free. I'm...the people in my life have expectations for me; you don't have to answer to anybody," Shelby said. 

"Look, don't try to out-sad me, okay? Let's not go there. And if they expect you to live your entire life in the closet, fuck them. You're an adult. Get new people in your life. You only have one," Toni said. "I know it's gotta be hard, you Evangelicals are really something else," she added after a pause.

"I can't," Shelby said, voice quiet, drained. Even Toni was relatively calm. She was regretting her luck, having this conversation with someone she'd hired to literally push her through difficulties in training. She could feel that dynamic rearing its head now.

"You can," Toni said, looking Shelby right in the eyes. "You probably will, eventually. You're stronger than you think if you've been going through all this without totally cracking. The only person you actually have to answer to is _yourself_ , Shelby, they can brainwash you all they want--it never fucking works or ends well. Looks to me like you've spent enough time faking and hiding. Just fucking go for it."

"Okay," Shelby whispered. In one smooth movement, she took a small step forward, grasped the back of Toni's neck, and pressed her lips to Toni's. And Toni, Toni didn't shove her back--she kissed Shelby back after the briefest moment, and soon, her hands drew Shelby's waist in close against her own.

Shelby indulged herself for one--no, two...three more seconds, then broke the kiss and sped out of the room toward her car as fast as she could without running.


	5. how to question your beliefs in a god-honoring way

Shelby spent the rest of the day on Sunday pacing at home, going over the conversation she and Toni had had and overthinking everything possible. Toni made it sound so simple, despite having admitted that leaving what you knew was a difficult thing to do. Shelby could hardly imagine it. What was she even supposed to do, if she were to decide to do this? (Hypothetically, of course.)

Hypothetically, she'd never see Spencer or Melody again. She might never see her parents again either. Shelby wracked her brain to remember what happened to people that came out that had once been in her congregation. As far as she knew, they all basically disappeared and were barely heard of or spoken of again (though there were often some pointed comments in subsequent sermons). Needless to say, the thought was as painful as ever. The _loneliness_ her daddy spoke of definitely included a permanent separation from her family. 

While Shelby knew a handful of people that grew up alongside her that broke, to varying degrees, with their upbringing, they usually still were in contact with their families and even came back to visit for holidays. Shelby saw them in church around Thanksgiving and on Christmas and Easter. The only person that she could really think of that never came back was Becca.

Becca, who lived in Austin now, who'd rebounded from the lowest point in her life (in which Shelby played no small part--something Shelby couldn't think about right now) and seemed like she was doing well now, if her social media was in any way an accurate representation of her life now.

If Becca could do it, maybe…

Maybe Shelby could too. But the prospect was enough to make her dizzy with anxiety. She'd end up divorcing Andrew, would probably have to move away, and where could she work? She hadn’t worked since marrying Andrew, but at least Shelby, unlike many of her female peers at church, had gone to college and had a degree. If she had someone to lean on, she could probably scrape by eventually. And divorcing Andrew, well, that would actually probably work out, when she thought about it. But this whole idea overall? Cataclysmic. 

She certainly didn't have anyone to lean on for this.

Hypothetically, maybe she could do it, in some universe. But in this one, Shelby had no idea how to go about this. Or if she even really wanted it—what she desperately wanted was some world where loving women wasn’t wrong, and where she wouldn’t have to trade her family and church and stability for it. Sure, she wasn't living some ideal life or even what she would call satisfied or particularly happy, but this was…comfortable. All aspects of her life were a known quantity. Ever since she really figured out that she was different, she'd been adapting to manage living in this milieu. Hell, this wasn’t even the first (or second) time she’d shared an impulsive kiss with another woman. 

After she notice the sun setting (it hadn't felt like she'd been freaking out for that long, not that she'd been paying attention), Shelby took a moment to go out on the deck in the back. Andrew would be home at some point soon. Shelby shoved her confusion and worries to the back burner as best she could, hoping that cooking dinner would do something to distract her. Some music would almost definitely help too.

But once she was sliding a sheet-pan standby recipe (one Andy liked; Shelby had no appetite to speak of) in the oven and had nothing more to do with herself except clean up, _Day by Day_ came on and Shelby paused. She couldn't bring herself to skip it, but she couldn't find it in herself to sing along.

Andrew came home, seeming happy, raving about the football game he’d been playing with all his guy friends. Shelby forced a smile and sat down to eat with him, with a pittance of a serving on her plate. Even Andrew noticed.

“That’s all you’re eating, babe? You need your protein, you know, since you’ve been workin’ out more.”

“I—skipped today, actually, and I uh, ate a big lunch,” Shelby said. That seemed to satisfy Andrew, who made a joke about the Sabbath and carried on.

—

Unsurprisingly, sleep doesn't end up being much of a thing for Shelby on the nights between Sunday and Tuesday. On Sunday night, she even ended up watching a movie ( _Aquaman_ , now streaming, which Andrew had missed in theaters and had complained about for days after the last showing) with Andrew, not even minding the activity because it gave her something to attempt to focus on, and she didn't have to try to talk to him for a couple of hours. 

Her mind ran in the same circles and visited the same haunts in her memory on Monday. Shelby plastered her smile on as she picked Spencer up from baseball practice and took her siblings out for a walk by the water (with ice cream, of course). She listened to them chatter, thankful that it calmed the calamity of her own mind somewhat. But she had to blink back tears several times as she thought of the worst: whatever time she spent with her family now could be one of the last times ever.

Yet beneath all her fears, a certainty grew in Shelby. She had to do this, didn't she? And she knew that she eventually would, which had to be why she was so terrified and...mournful. If she had to pull over and cry on her way home from her parents' place after dropping Mel and Spence back home for the night, at least she felt a sense of release after (she might have hung on to them for a while: cooked them dinner, made them do their homework at her place).

Tuesday rolled around and Shelby forced herself out of bed to dress and make her way to the gym. Even if Toni didn't want to see her anymore, she had to make sure that she wouldn't expose Shelby in any way, if she hadn't already. Even if she only told Martha or a random friend about her crazy closeted Jesus freak friend, it could mean absolute havoc for Shelby in this town.

Toni was actually sitting behind the front desk for once when Shelby walked in. The gym usually only had one or two employees around at a time, and the desk was often unmanned. And she had her eyes on Shelby. Had Toni been waiting for her?

"Hey," Toni said, standing and walking around the desk.

"Hi," Shelby replied, feeling like the single syllable was the only safe thing to let come out of her mouth.

"Follow me," Toni said. She did look back after a few steps, and found Shelby hadn't moved. She walked back and asked, "You okay? Come on," she urged.

"No, I--I need to talk to you," Shelby managed.

"Yeah, I figured," Toni said, not unkindly. "You don't want to do that right here, do you?"

"Oh...no," Shelby said, sighing. She looked around, wary of anyone that might be watching, suddenly. With that, Toni turned and Shelby followed this time.

"So," Toni started, once she'd closed the door to the back. "I wasn't sure you were gonna show."

"Neither was I," Shelby joked, weakly. "Look, I'm sorry about before."

"Why?" Toni asked. “Are you apologizing when you don’t have to again?”

Shelby started to answer, but wasn't sure she knew what to say, exactly. "Uh, for kissing you?"

"Well, don't be, I...didn't mind. But you seemed freaked out," Toni said, shifting in place. "Are you...okay?"

Shelby hadn't expected this, but it wasn't unwelcome. Toni's attention, even this little bit, felt...good. "I don't know. No," she said.

Toni nodded slowly. ”You don't look okay. Are you up for today or do you want to cancel?"

It was a little hard to ask, but Shelby couldn't let this chance go. Toni was the only one who had even an inkling of where she was really at right now. "Can we talk for a bit?"

"Option C it is," Toni said. She grabbed a mostly-inflated exercise ball and offered it to Shelby, who sat cautiously. Toni sat on a bench. "Seriously, what have you been thinking?"

"I've been thinkin' I..." Shelby couldn't believe tears were already threatening to well up in her eyes, but here she was. Deep breaths. "I've been thinking I don't want to lose...everything but I can't stop thinking about things bein’ different," Shelby rushed through the rest of the sentence to get through it before she couldn't speak through the pressure to sob. A couple of tears fell, and she flicked them away quickly with her hands. 

"Come here," Toni said. Shelby didn't even pretend like she didn't want to, and moved onto the bench as soon as Toni gave the command. She kept her face low in a half-hearted attempt to hide from Toni. The unexpected care from this woman that seemed so hard on the outside (except with people she likes, Shelby realized, thinking back to how she seemed around Martha) was making it a lot harder to not burst into tears and go into full meltdown mode. Toni reached out and placed her hand on Shelby's knee.

"You've got me, at least, Shelby, and Martha. If these hillbillies try to run you out of town or anything, you've got a place with us."

The mention of Martha kickstarted Shelby's panic. "Please, don't tell anyone, not even Martha--"

"Woah, I won't, I won't. I didn't, she doesn't know anything," Toni said, thumb stroking over Shelby's skin, now.

It took a couple of minutes for Shelby to calm down. Focusing on her surroundings helped; the quiet hum of the exposed vents in this unfinished back room, the harsh overhead fluorescent lighting, racks and shelves stuffed with gym equipment. But the woman next to her was most important. She straightened up, finally looked Toni in the eye for a second, but then her gaze dropped down to Toni's hand, which hadn't yet moved. Shelby's own hand came to hover over it and gently rest on top of it.

"Thanks, Toni," Shelby said, breaking the silence.

"I haven't even done anything," Toni replied. "I mostly just yell at you," she joked. Shelby rewarded her with a small laugh. 

"You've done a lot more than you know," Shelby said seriously, and it was true. She looked back at Toni and found her eyes drawn down to the other woman's mouth almost immediately. She shuffled even closer on the small bench, intent on kissing Toni again, but feeling averse to simply throwing herself at the woman as she had before. "Can I..."

Shelby didn't get to finish her question because Toni answered it by kissing her softly. It was a surprisingly chaste thing; Toni broke away after what felt like no time at all, only to dive right back in after _something_ passed between them in the brief moment their eyes met in the interim. This kiss deepened and Shelby quickly lost herself in the feeling. Toni's hands moved to her neck and waist and Shelby, overwhelmed, eventually moved her own to Toni's face.

Suddenly, Toni moved away again, causing Shelby's heart to skip a beat in alarm. Was something wrong? But she saw Toni's eyes dart to the door directly across from them and understood instantly. She stood, reaching for Shelby's hand and wordlessly guiding her to an area of the room away from the direct line of sight of the door--the other side of the racks. She pressed Shelby against the wall gently, one hand on her hips, and reconnected their lips. Something about the alcove inspired a new level of urgency in Shelby. She deepened the kiss again, and Toni pressed closer to Shelby, finally tracing both of her hands along Shelby's sides, making Shelby shiver at the feeling.

When Toni licked into her mouth, Shelby groaned, grateful for their distance from anyone that could hear them unless either one of them got incredibly loud (Shelby recognized that if things went further, that was actually a distinct possibility). She traced her hands down Toni's neck, shoulders, then, hesitant to touch Toni anywhere else without permission, drew a hand to one of Toni's and guided it to her own breast. Toni backed off, searching Shelby's eyes.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. God, yes," Shelby said, breathless. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with her life, but she knew she wanted this.

Toni dove down to kiss her neck and Shelby felt like she was at risk of floating away at the feeling. Even Toni's hand gently kneading her breast felt so much better than she would have thought, and soon, she felt desperate to feel more.

"Toni," Shelby whispered before drawing the other woman's face back to hers for another kiss. She took Toni's lip between her teeth gently on her way out of the kiss, prompting an unexpected groan from Toni. Shelby could swear that just being the reason Toni make that sound was the best feeling yet. "Please, touch me."

Toni made another small sound as she reconnected their lips. Her hands slipped underneath Shelby's tank top, and Shelby gasped at the skin-to-skin contact. She pulled back, slipped out of her tank top faster than she'd ever done...anything, it felt like, and somehow managed to not clock Toni with her elbows or hands. And when Toni's hands were back on Shelby's body, touching stomach, her waist, and then pulling her sports bra out of the way to make way for Toni's mouth, Shelby began to feel like she might be having some kind of transcendent experience. This was what sex (well, not quite yet) was supposed to be like?

Shelby's eyes were closed for most of the time Toni spent making her see stars with her lips and tongue and teeth on her nipple, but she didn't miss the look on Toni's face when she straightened up and took in the sight before her. "Oh my fucking God," Toni said lowly. "Come here," she said again. And then she kissed Shelby again, and after a moment, Toni moved her hand into Shelby's compression shorts and explored Shelby briefly, softly. Shelby gasped, breaking the kiss, and pressed her head back against the wall, eyes shut tight. 

"Tell me if you want to stop, okay?" Toni said. Shelby nodded. She didn't want to stop, and Toni hadn't even really started– _Oh shit._

Toni's fingers skimmed across Shelby's clit, then in various light patterns until Shelby's breath hitched and she bit her lip before moaning quietly as Toni kept going, and then kept going as Shelby kissed Toni, somehow feeling desperate to in the moment. She couldn't keep it up for long, though--the pleasure was starting to build to a point where she was nearly panting. Long moments passed while Shelby could do nothing but zero in on the pleasure, even as she felt the telltale signs of her climax nearing as she leaned back against the back room wall, one hand clutching at Toni's neck, the other wrapped around the adjacent shelf's unyielding steel.

Right before she knew she was about to break, Shelby brought that hand back (she didn't dare let go of Toni) to muffle her moaning as the shock of pleasure hit her. Toni touched her through her orgasm, leaving Shelby shuddering past the end of it as Toni's fingers slowed and finally stopped.

Still breathing hard and deep, Shelby slowly opened her eyes to find Toni watching her silently.

"You okay?" Toni asked.

"Better than okay," Shelby replied, sending Toni a small and seemingly involuntary smile. She'd never felt this _high_ after an orgasm before. 

"I can imagine," Toni said, smirking back. She removed her hand and reached with the other to retrieve Shelby's top. Shelby accepted it, a little flabbergasted, and fixed her bra while Toni wiped her hand on the inside of her own shirt.

"What about you?"

"You don't have to," Toni said, backing off from Shelby minutely.

"I want to," Shelby said automatically, because it was true.

"Next time. If you want," Toni replied, smiling gently at her.

Shelby hadn't exactly been thinking of the future while Toni touched her, but if she had the chance, she wasn't going to miss it. "Alright," she agreed. Only then did she slip her tank top back over her head. "I..." Shelby started, though she was unsure what to say. She'd obviously never been here before. "See you Thursday?"

"Yeah," Toni rasped, just before leaning in to kiss Shelby once more. “Here, put my number in your phone," Toni said, and Shelby did. They walked over to the door and Shelby checked her appearance with her phone before Toni did the same. Shelby almost felt skittish when faced with the prospect of leaving the room, like a scarlet 'A' would materialize as soon as she did. "Breathe," Toni reminded her. "Just walk to your car, okay? You didn't do anything wrong. Remember that."

Shelby digested her words, then looked at Toni askance. "How do you know just what to say to me all the time?"

Toni lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I just reverse-engineer what I imagine you've been brainwashed with."

Shelby let out a laugh despite everything, shaking her head, then nodded at Toni when she moved to grasp the doorknob.

She did scan the room as soon as the door opened, but no one was paying attention to her or Toni; mostly because as usual, almost no one was around. Shelby still let out a sigh of relief when she got out of the gym and into her car.

As Shelby drove away, she felt a sensation of liberation, and something suspiciously like the feeling of being right all along.

—

Shelby closed the door behind her, supremely grateful for the privacy of her home.

"I just...I just had lesbian sex," Shelby said under her breath. She almost felt as if she'd walked out of a fantasy back into reality. Maybe she'd never gone down to the gym after all? But no, of course it was all real. Even Toni's number in her phone. Shelby didn't know what to do with herself. Part of her psyche was begging her to lie prostrate and beg God for forgiveness and to _repent_ , but Shelby couldn't honestly repent--turn her back on, renounce, however you defined it--from what had just happened. The contrast between her encounter with Toni and the times she'd suffered through physical intimacy with Andrew was greater than night and day; she could hardly believe the discrepancy.But she could recognize the feeling of a puzzle piece clicking into place in her mind.

Shelby closed her eyes and breathed. What was the biggest thing she was feeling right now? She wanted to pray, but she knew it wasn't to beg for forgiveness. Shelby might be a little renegade right now, but she knew one thing; God's ears were always open for her, for any of his children.

She wrapped her arms around herself and started her prayer softly. "Lord, I...I don't know what to say. I just hope I can still live a life that pleases you." she said. _There has to be more to that than who I like._ ”If I'm not, please show me the way."

Shelby stopped there. And suddenly, she felt like she'd cleared the air, like she finally had the clear to explore what she probably should have bit the bullet on a long time ago now. After taking care to keep breathing and keep her anxious thoughts at bay, she grabbed her laptop and started researching.

The first few frightful queries where all some combination of 'lgbt', 'gay.' 'church,' or 'christian.' The results were a cacophony of voices making claims this way and that. Soon, Shelby had an untold number of tabs open as she opened links from organizations she recognizes and ones she did not. There were even articles from major publications that she'd never have thought of weighing in on the issue.

Shelby bounced back and forth, reading takedowns of the infamous "clobber verses" before being reeled in by groups advocating that Christians that have same-sex attraction should live celibate lives or get into a mixed orientation marriage. Then she fell into a Youtube rabbit hole; there were tons of videos on the same topic but the personal nature of people's vlogs or recorded talks seemed to hit her harder.

This wasn't really helping, the endless rehash of viewpoints. Shelby shut her laptop a little harder than she probably should have, feeling no less anxious than earlier. Maybe she just needed to think about this on her own after digesting everything she'd just taken in.

On the one hand, she found herself agreeing with the critique of the use of clobber verses. And Shelby had tried the whole "just get married" thing, as well as the "ignore it and pray" technique that had evidently served her so well. The fact that she'd tried and nothing was actually working for her--in fact, her efforts really seemed to be a burden in her life--lent her a sense of vindication.

On the other, the weight of all the sermons she'd listened to concerning sin were pushing back. The reasoning of what she'd been taught had been well and truly drilled into her; she had trouble reading the Bible any other way, truth be told. But when she looked back at what she knew, what she'd lived, it was too much in the light of the doubt shed on all that doctrine.

And soon, Shelby was daring to find out what denominations and churches in general were safer for her. Maybe there were some nearby.

Turns out there were.

Shelby wondered what she might find there as she got up, blinking from staring at the screen so long, but also feeling different, perhaps a little _renewed_ , again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did some of the same searches i wanted shelby to do just to see what would come up and my GOD, i do notttt fucking recommend. reading all that shit i used to believe and struggle with was not fun.
> 
> also this chapter was probably the trickiest yet, it reminds me that i have no idea what i’m doing really! which of course means a) i should write more and b) i’d love(!!) to know your thoughts in the comments.
> 
> thanks for reading :)


	6. how to start an affair in a god-honoring way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> longest chapter yet.

Shelby debated how she should save Toni's contact information in her phone for far too long. It was a small thing, yet it felt bigger than it was. This was just one more step toward making this...thing between them—not to mention Shelby's own emerging identity—real. Leaving it as 'Toni' felt too casual; eventually her paranoia won and she went with 'Toni (PT)' and even added the name of the gym to her info section, hoping to make it seem like a professional contact only, just in case.

She didn't like it, but the idea of doing any kind of texting with Toni that could backfire crept in the back of her mind and made her pull back. Maybe they could just call if they ever needed to talk.

Shelby sighed at the fact that she’d actually debated this…it felt like she overthought basically everything now. Or at least to a greater degree. Growing up with Dave Goodkind as her father meant she ended up doing a lot of looking over her shoulder after a certain point.

When she woke on Thursday, she went through her normal routine: cooking breakfast for her and Andrew, doing a short morning devotional, checking what she needed to do for the day. Her life took the same shape it had for a while now, but her view on it was shifting. What would it be like to be married to a woman, to an equal? Or even just have one as a partner, to do all this for her—no—with her? Shelby allowed herself to indulge in the fantasy, for a little while (too much and she’d sour even more on her actual life as it was).

Shelby smiled her way through a couple of hours behind the desk at All Rise again, then made the customary small talk and gestures as she went to the church for worship practice and to the grocery store after. Everything she did publicly felt like it had this new weight, and this coming Sunday, standing up in front of the congregation singing backup vocals with the worship band as she often did, she was sure she'd feel that sensation more than ever. 

Behind her smiles, her thoughts ricocheted between Toni and her future and the seemingly endless fount of memories from her past that she couldn't seem to push down. Not to mention more recent memories as well--sure, she'd had her world altered by her first time with a woman yesterday, but if anything she was worse off as far as desire was concerned. Now that she knew what Toni's hands felt like on her body, not just hovering or briefly brushing her clothed form for her job, but touching her with the intent to bring Shelby pleasure, she couldn't ignore how deeply she was craving those hands again. And her lips. And, well, her everything--Shelby hadn't gotten much chance to explore.

She showed up on Thursday and finally, Toni was in her sights again as soon as she walked in--she'd been sitting at the desk just like last time. Shelby knew it was really just her job, but Toni had never done this before the last two times they were scheduled to meet. She couldn't help but feel like it was for her, a little bit. And Toni earned a soft, somewhat shy smile for it, along with a soft greeting. For her part, Toni looked relieved and maybe a little happy to see her.

"How you feeling?" Toni began, casually, walking with Shelby to the treadmill.

"I'm okay," Shelby said. Toni said nothing while she got on the treadmill, but Shelby felt her eyes on her and looked up at her, another involuntary smile tugging at her lips. "Really." She dropped her voice as she continued. "I'm a little...frazzled, but I...I think I can handle this," Shelby said. It felt more true when she said it.

It was a little hard to focus on the workout with what had happened on Tuesday clouding the air between them. Shelby usually counted her reps, but damn if she wasn't losing count on nearly every set today; she trusted Toni was counting correctly, but she'd honestly never know. She had to put effort into the grind, yes, but if her lack of concentration was causing her form to slip a bit and that made Toni have to step in a bit more, Shelby was fine with that. She was especially fine with the way Toni teased her about how well she was doing today, and how they shared another set of smiles over it.

As for her ostensible reason for being here: Shelby had made real headway on building strength for her goal of one pull-up, and it was time to actually start working on the movement itself.

Toni set them up near a long consecutive set of bars and left to bring a wooden box from another area of the gym over. Shelby watched her go, feeling a little bold now that she felt like she had some permission to appreciate Toni. "We're gonna start with lowering yourself down from the bar. It's called an eccentric, or a negative," Toni explained. "So, you're gonna step up on the box, get on the bar with bent arms, and try to come down as slowly as possible." Toni demonstrated as she spoke, impressing Shelby with the lack of strain in her voice (and her biceps--and her shoulders...Toni was back in the muscle tank).

When it was Shelby's turn, Toni helped her step onto the box and Shelby was unexpectedly grateful her face was already red from her workout, which ended up being a recurring theme for her as they worked through the rest of what Toni had planned. The negatives were harder than she'd thought--certainly harder than Toni had made them look--but Toni reassured her that like everything else they'd done together, she'd build up the requisite strength, and soon, she'd be doing as many pull-ups as she could ever want.

Toni and Shelby both lingered after they finished up; Shelby taking her sweet time toweling off the same parts of her body, Toni managing to just stand there, one hand in her pocket, the other playing with the contents of the lanyard around her neck. There were only a few more minutes in Shelby's block of time, so she had to pony up quick. "Hey, would it be possible to see you, um, outside the gym?" Shelby ventured.

Toni blinked. "Yeah, yeah of course. What were you thinking?"

Shelby hadn't thought that far. It must have shown on her face as she tried to think of an answer.

Toni was amazingly merciful, though she did laugh a bit as she saved Shelby. "You can text me or, you know, whatever." She flashed a smile at Shelby and reached out to touch her upper arm briefly. The contact would almost certainly read as friendly to anyone who happened to be observing, but for Shelby it was electrifying; she felt the impression of Toni's hand long after it was gone.

Shelby smiled back effortlessly, and left the gym feeling light and pleasantly tired. _Must be the endorphins_ , she mused, only half-serious. Endorphins were great and all, but there was something else--something beautiful--at work there for sure.

—

While Shelby agonized over what she should do with Toni, she prepared for one of many fundraising activities she'd be participating in: an after-service bake sale on Sunday. The whole weekend would be fairly packed with church and family-related events, actually.

Given recent developments, Shelby was minutely apprehensive even though these were all her people and this milieu was her comfort zone. But maybe all she could do was try to treasure the good that she could get from what time she had left, before she triggered a schism in her family and community.

So Shelby found her favorite crowd-pleasing cookie recipes: fudgy brownies, chocolate chunk cookies (Texas-sized), and snickerdoodles. She enlisted Melody's help, and after some coaxing with promises of cookies of his own to eat, got Spencer to join her too. As she left her parent's house with her siblings in tow, Shelby looked back when she realized the door hadn't closed yet, and her heart ached at the soft smile her mother emitted as she watched them all go.

Shelby smiled back and drove off, feeling a little like she was getting away with something.

Andrew was homeby the time she got back to their place, and they all said their hellos--Shelby moved to kiss Andrew's cheek before he could kiss her own cheek or anything else. Shelby was a little alarmed when he placed his arm on her waist to keep her close to him as Melody and Spencer moved into the kitchen--the unease that she felt whenever he held her seemed so much more acute today.

"Hey babe, I just wanted to let you know I've got to travel for work in a couple days," Andrew said,

"Oh. Where to?" 

"Over to Florida. There's a convention; sales needs a rep there,” he said, finally moving his hand back. "Gonna leave Saturday."

Shelby wouldn't have admitted it before her life shifted as it had lately, but that sounded like great news. "Okay," she said, finally breaking away to get baking.

—

\- 9:07 PM: _How would you feel about comin to my place? Just to talk_

\- **Toni (PT** ) 9:10 PM: _cool, let me get your address_

\- 9:11 PM: _Or...I could pick you up?_

\- **Toni (PT)** 9:13 PM: _ok, np, here's mine_

—

Friday came; her mother had insisted that they all have dinner together on Friday instead of on the weekend since Andrew would miss it if they left their plans the same. Spencer had a game that day, after school--an important one--so after cheering him on there, they congregated at her parents' home to celebrate Spence's win. Dave fired up the grill, Jobeth brought out what she'd prepared in advance, and eventually they were seated around the table, sharing a meal.

Shelby sat between Melody and Andrew, listening and eating slowly, mostly quiet and hoping no one would call her out for it. Spencer and Melody and Andrew were pretty effortlessly carrying the conversation anyway; the whole family was switching between listening intently to their adolescent woes and teasing them for this and that.

"What ever happened with that one kid on the team, Spence?" Dave asked. "He play today?"

"No, he's uh, he quit the team," Spencer muttered.

"What kid?" Andrew asked.

"A...well, there were some incidents in the locker room and all this drama with two boys on Spencer's team," Dave said, vaguely. "Caused some issues with the team, and with the post-season coming up, well it's probably for the best that he left."

" _Incidents_?" Andrew said, clearly confused, looking between Dave and Jobeth, then to Spencer. Shelby was too, but she was wary of what the issue was if her father wasn't being up front with it.

"I don't really want to get into it at the table, Andy. But there were rumors about him and another boy--I won't even repeat them--and then there were fights over it, and well, like I said. Good riddance," Dave said, finality in his voice.

“That sort of thing would never’ve happened over at North Christian,” Jobeth lamented.

Shelby had stiffened as her father was speaking; it was only now she noticed and felt compelled to at least seem relaxed and at ease with the obvious but unspoken subject at hand. She reached for her water too quickly and without really looking, and knocked over the mostly-full tall glass, taking in a sharp breath when she did. The water ran across the table toward her father and Shelby jumped up to start cleaning up, muttering an apology and feeling caught somehow. She couldn't look at her father but knew he was staring at her, only moving to lift his own glass and plate so she could dry the moisture underneath with the towel her mother had passed her without a word. The whole room was uncomfortably silent for those moments that felt so much longer than they should have.

Shelby chanced a glance at her dad as they righted the table and she sat back down. He hadn't stopped eyeing her, and she knew that her mother was probably watching her with that mix of worry and pity she was so practiced in. None of this was helping the sensation of being exposed. Melody passed her the pitcher for more water, and Shelby thanked her as she poured herself a new glass, and drank from it immediately after.

Andrew cut the silence flippantly. "Well, as long as the team's doing better," he said, then turned toward Jobeth. "And this was great, family, but I've still gotta pack," He said, emitting the smile and charm that her parents always seemed to like so much coming from him.

And soon, Shelby was playing over her little incident and suffering inside. Andrew was talking about what he needed for his trip; Shelby answered and interjected as necessary (yes, those pants are clean; there's another tube of the toothpaste you like in the medicine cabinet). These things happened once in a while, but they never jarred her any less. They always brought her back, to some degree, to that first time she panicked and begged her father to believe her about what had happened with Becca.

At the moment, however, she found she couldn't even be taken in by her memories of _that_ incident. Here, she felt like a straw had landed and finally broke her back. Her total disconnect with Andrew, her paranoia and discomfort around her own family...none of that was right. In fact, it was ass-backwards, wasn't it? Shouldn't she feel comfortable and accepted, even practically unconditionally loved by her family? And shouldn't both her _and_ Andrew be with people that adored them? Shelby began to think that maybe she had a lot less to lose than she'd initially feared. Shelby wasn't really sure what Andrew felt for her, if anything, but she knew _she_ didn't feel anywhere near the way a wife should. Despite the promises and the prayer and the effort she put in over the few years they'd been together, that wasn't changing. _I'll take that as a sign._

Andrew pulled in to their driveway and they went their separate ways once in the house. He'd probably be all over the bedroom at the least, so she settled on the couch, looking for something to throw on the television briefly, before she tossed the remote away. This was probably one of the worst parts of this whole...trial she was going through; when she was acutely upset, she had no where to turn, really. And when Andrew was around, she had to have her mask on even at home.

Shelby sighed, made her way upstairs (she was right about Andrew's packing taking over their room), and lay back on the bed, watching him absently. She pulled out her phone, wondering if she should, or could, text Toni. No--she was going to see her tomorrow anyway; Shelby could handle herself until then.

In the end, she stuck to watching Andrew, eventually helping him fold his clothes into his suitcase. When Andrew was finally finished and they went to bed, the cover of darkness took over the room and felt like a small mercy.

—

Andrew was gone early; Shelby could only half-remember waking up as he got up to get ready to leave and hearing his groggy goodbye. Thankfully, she seemed to have gone right back to sleep.

Waking up the second time, she met the rays of sunshine with a muted optimism for the day. She had the house to herself, she was going to see Toni, and she finally had more resolve regarding what she knew she had to do. Shelby got dressed, texted Toni to find out when she could come by, and went out for breakfast, eagerly waiting for the clock to approach something close to the appropriate time to go over to Toni's.

With time, she was parking in front of Toni's building and fussing over her appearance in the car mirror--but then she caught herself. Not only was this not a date--or not a real one, anyway--Toni had literally seen her huffing, puffing, and red all over. Shelby looked fine. Well, better than fine (she'd made sure of it), so she shouldn't feel nervous.

Toni answered the door a few moments after she knocked, looking gorgeous in the sunlight. Her brown eyes gleamed golden briefly and Shelby was stricken, could do nothing but smile at Toni and try to breathe. She hadn't even really zeroed in on the real treat yet: Toni in casual clothes as opposed to what she wore to work.

"Hey Shelby," Toni said, something between a smirk and a smile on her face.

"Hi," Shelby said. "That's my car over there," she said, walking wit hToni.

"Red Cherokee, I know," Toni said.

"You do?"

"Well, one: it's hard to miss, and two: I've seen you come out of it too many times to count by now, so."

Shelby wasn't sure what to say, but she was pleased by the small revelation that Toni noticed such things about her. They both got in, Shelby prepared to drive off, and soon they were on the road. Her playlist started up when the bluetooth reconnected, and Dolly Parton's voice covered the silence in the car.

"Thanks for agreein' to see me," Shelby said eventually.

"As if I could say no," Toni said, and Shelby wished she could look at the other woman, really engage with her.

"Well," she said, shy smile creeping back on to her face. "I just wanted to talk, like I said, maybe...well, take a walk or somethin'."

"Just one thing,” Toni said.

"Yeah?"

"Is this a date?"

"No! I mean, I--not that I wouldn't--" Shelby spluttered, looking over at Toni quickly as she stopped to make a turn only to find a wide smile on the other woman's face. Shelby shook her head, laughing the tension away lightly. "It's not," she said simply. She waited and ponied up some courage, "I'd like to be on one with you, at some point, if that...appeals to you."

"It does," Toni said, smile still evident in her tone.

Toni teased her about her music and the conversation turned to their music preferences, and then they were in Shelby's driveway.

Shelby unlocked the door and pushed it open to let Toni go first. Toni took Shelby's home in as Shelby observed her. Toni whirled around and said what you're supposed to say: "Nice place," as she continued to look around. Shelby would be shocked if Toni actually liked it, and suddenly she was aware that she wanted to know those small things about Toni, like how she would decorate her place.

Instead of asking, Shelby said: "Thanks. I--You want anything to drink?" 

"Whatever you're having,"

Shelby brought them both glasses of water she couldn't imagine either of them actually paying any attention to. She didn't miss the soft brush of their fingers as she handed Toni's off and they sat down in her living room on the loveseat.

"Okay, so, I just wanted to talk after what happened, um, in the back," Shelby said. Yes, she was an adult, but she rarely talked about sex explicitly. It would definitely help to just clear the air about that, too. “First of all, I don't really know what I'm doin', Toni. But I--I definitely want you," Shelby admitted, breathing before her next admissions. "And I like you. And girls in general, like I told you so calmly."

Toni smiled, nodded, and jumped in when it seemed like Shelby was done for now. "I like you too," she said, voice gentle despite its inherent rasp. Happiness sparked in Shelby's chest as their eyes locked across the short distance between them.

“That’s…good to hear. I’m kind of about to upend my life, though, so I...I don't really know what to do about all that. Gotta get rid of this," Shelby held her left hand up, and the diamonds on her wedding ring sparkled in the light. "I'm probably gonna be a mess...So I don't know if we can go on that date for a while, at least not...officially," Shelby said.

Toni was looking back at Shelby with something like admiration in her gaze. "God, you're so brave. It's crazy,” she muttered. “And that's okay, Shelby, really. We...I'm okay with whatever pace you need."

Shelby marveled a moment at the other woman's understanding, then forged on. "So I'm gonna be filing for divorce as soon as possible." It was the first time she'd said it out loud, and though she hadn't had anything close to a treasured relationship with Andrew, they still felt heavy. Shelby looked away, brow creased, imagining the fallout.

"Another thing," Toni began. Shelby looked up at her. "Make sure it's not for me, okay? All this has got to be for you, not 'cause you're into me."

"It is. For me, I mean. I just can't do any of this anymore," Shelby said, nearly whispering.

"Is this," Toni motioned between them, "all...new? Or, when did you know you were gay?"

"Since forever, basically, it feels like. What about you?"

"Same, but I'm guessing we have different stories. I kind of literally mean forever, like since I was a kid. I was a foster kid, so depending on the house...until I started staying with Marty, things could be dicey with being out or not," Toni explained.

"I'm glad you had Martha," Shelby said.

"Yeah. I actually did stay with some families that were like, really religious."

"I'm sorry," Shelby said, meaning it. Toni looked perplexed.

"Don't apologize, Shelby. It's hurt you too. It still is," Toni reasoned.

Shelby dipped her head, breathing deep to tamp down on the tears. "Yeah," was all she could say. After a long moment, she managed to go on. "I wouldn't say I've ever been 'out'...my parents kind of just found out. I kissed my best friend and my dad walked in..." Toni grimaced. "Yeah. And that summer he had me read all these books and talk to a counselor at the church. That was in high school. And eventually Andrew asked me out and I said yes," Shelby explained. 

"Jesus Christ," Toni breathed. "Fuck," she said again, under her breath. "They...he put you through conversion therapy," Toni said in a rush.

"I...well, not really? He must have been about an inch from sending me to this place some guys he knew went to but--"

"What were the books about? What did the counselor say?"

"It was all about fighting same-sex attraction," Shelby said.

"And telling you you're not really ‘gay,’ right?"

Shelby nodded, mind running over what had happened in her teens, putting the pieces together. She didn't know how to feel about this. "I guess you're right," she murmured.

Toni reached over and touched Shelby's face to draw her eyes back to Toni's. Shelby blinked rapidly, stomach fluttering at the gesture even as she felt sick. "You didn't deserve that." Toni said it with such firm gentleness, and Shelby could feel her face crumble before she folded herself into Toni's arms, weeping.

"I keep crying," Shelby choked out, after minutes of silently shedding tears hidden in the crook of Toni's neck.

"It's okay," Toni said, shuffling back to lean into the corner of the loveseat. A little more shuffling and Shelby found herself tucked in Toni's strong arms, reveling in the feeling of safety she felt. Safe enough to keep talking as she wiped her tears away.

"After all that, I went to college--same as Andy--and, well, there were a few girls I was probably too close to." Shelby paused, thinking back on the cycle she'd gone through so many times. Make a friend, get too close, have something happen that the pushes past the edge of just-friends, and feel forced to pull back or sever the connection. "And then Andrew proposed after graduation and we moved back here, and here I am."

"You'll be where you want to be soon."

"This is the first time I think I'm sayin' this, but...right now I kind of am," Shelby said. She was done crying, and felt compelled to take Toni's hand from where it rested on her own body, bring it to her lips, and press a light kiss there.

Shelby shifted to look into Toni’s eyes, knowing she probably looked like a wreck, but only saw acceptance there. In a heartbeat, she (or was it both of them?) pressed her lips to Toni’s. The push and pull of their lips and the contact their position on the couch afforded them were like catalysts for Shelby’s desire, and soon she was straddling Toni and touching her all over. When Toni’s hands slipped under her shirt and Shelby felt desperate to get Toni (and herself) out of her clothes, she pulled back—only because it was necessary—to stand and offer Toni her hand.

“Come,” Shelby said, walking backwards with Toni’s hand in hers until they reached the stairs, and eventually (with a few breaks) the guest bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies, but due to irl stuff the next update will probably take another day or two. and if anyone wants to talk about the fic or...anything else, i've got a barebones tumblr now: gaywristwatch!
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. and a big thank you to those that share their thoughts/reactions in the comments :)


	7. how to out yourself in a god-honoring way

Shelby grasped Toni's face in her hands and kissed her intently when they made it to their destination (thankfully the room closest to the stairs, so they didn't have far to walk. Shelby felt every second she wasn't touching more than Toni's hand). Kissing Toni felt as intoxicating as it had before; Shelby found she was more surprised than she should have been when the backs of her knees touched the bed. And of course, she remembered Toni's promise from last time; how could she forget? Some part of Shelby wanted to rush, to turn and push Toni onto the mattress and--well, do whatever Toni would like her to do--but the more dominant part told her she'd get there, that they had time.

That realization felt luxurious.

Shelby broke the kiss and bent to explore Toni's neck with her mouth for a few moments, savoring the small gasps her lips wrought from Toni's before she sat down, tugging on Toni's hips in hopes that she'd follow. Toni hiked one knee onto the mattress next to Shelby's hips, then the other, straddling her without hesitation. She met Shelby halfway in reconnecting their kiss, and Shelby groaned at the feeling of Toni atop her when Toni finally let her weight settle. Shelby's hands smoothed over the other woman's strong back, around her waist, and then down to her hips to encourage the movement that had started there.

After--Shelby had no idea how long--she ended up on her back, with Toni kissing her neck and collarbone while Shelby tried to keep her wits about her, which was within the range of possibility until Toni straightened up to peel her top off. Shelby's desire surged at the sight of Toni's planes of tan skin interrupted only by her bra. Shelby knew she was staring, as she probably always did (or struggled not to) when Toni's skin was on display. God, Shelby was starting to feel desperate to touch her. She lifted her hands to Toni's waist again, stroking at the smooth skin there. 

"You're so damn hot," Shelby managed as she took in the sight above her, including Toni's soft smirk that appeared after Shelby's compliment. Feeling challenged by the look on Toni's face, Shelby surged up and shifted, and Toni rolled smoothly underneath her. Shelby lowered herself to kiss Toni again, then dared to move down from her lips to her jaw, neck, and chest, but Toni's bra was still in the way.

"You want that off?" Toni asked, voice low.

"Absolutely."

Toni did her the favor of removing the bra herself, and Shelby moved to take hers off in the meantime. When both garments were gone, Shelby marveled at Toni even as Toni marveled right back at her. Shelby settled back over Toni, gradually, gasping when their breasts brushed and pressed together. The feeling was gasoline all over the flame of her desire, and she couldn't help her moans at all the contact when Toni brought her hands up to explore Shelby's skin.

Soon she was back to kissing down to Toni's chest, eager but tamping down on nerves that were working their way into her body as things escalated between them. Choosing to focus on what was right in front of her instead of any doubts about her performance--she'd just told Toni she has no idea what she's doing, anyway--Shelby kissed Toni's sternum before bringing a hand to one breast and brushing Toni's nipple with her thumb. Toni hissed lightly, so she moved to follow up with her mouth, finally drawing an outright groan from Toni. Shelby tried different things, switched breasts, and found what Toni liked best, judging by the sounds (and curses) coming from her mouth and the movement of her hips. Shelby pulled back, figuring she should probably do something to give Toni some relief.

Shelby sat up, feeling a surge of confidence when she saw the arousal on Toni’s face. "Can I take these off?" She asked, fiddling with the button on Toni's jeans.

"Fuck yes,” Toni replied, immediately, and Shelby couldn't help the light giggle it prompted from her as she took off both of their bottoms. 

She settled right next to Toni, kissing her again and feeling a new thrill at all the new skin and contact. She drew one hand over Toni's skin in relatively innocent places for now, gearing up for what would come next. "Might need your help with this," Shelby muttered, breaking the kiss. She wasn't sure she'd be able to both kiss and touch Toni. 

"I doubt that," Toni said, eyes roving over Shelby's face. "Trust me, you're doing fucking fantastic."

Emboldened, Shelby took a steadying breath and skimmed her fingers over Toni's stomach toward where Toni wanted her. Shelby closed her eyes when she felt the warm slick between Toni's legs, feeling the pull of desire deeper than she ever had before. After a brief exploration and moment of wonder, she slid her fingers up to Toni's clit, and opened her eyes to look down Toni's body (stopping to watch the rise and fall her chest and abdomen), and swallowed at the sight of her own hand between Toni's legs.

With a few guiding words from Toni, Shelby found what worked--what made Toni's breath hitch and stutter, and what eventually had Toni moaning, her voice taking on a tone Shelby felt blessed to hear.Shelby relished the sight (and sound) of Toni reacting and finally, after begging for Shelby to go just a bit faster, she shuddered and peaked under Shelby's ministrations.

It was probably the best and most beautiful thing Shelby had ever seen. 

So far.

Toni recovered slightly, and Shelby was a little uneasy when she noticed the other woman chuckling to herself.

"What is it?"

Toni must have heard the anxiety in Shelby's voice, because she placed a placating hand on Shelby's shoulder. "It's just I--you said it's not a date...I didn't think you were the type to fuck—twice—before the first date," Toni explained. Shelby just shook her head, laughing half in relief and half at the silly--but fair--observation.

"Neither did I," she said. From the outside in, it might seem incongruous, but at this point Shelby didn't regret a thing.

Toni looked at her for a moment, raising a hand to Shelby's face and stroking at her cheek before drawing her down for a kiss. Shelby turned over on her back when Toni seemed to want to go that way, and then it was her neck, chest, and abdomen Toni was kissing and stroking.

Shelby wasn't sure how she'd respond, but she said yes when Toni asked if she could press two fingers inside of Shelby. Luckily, the way Toni moved and pulsed her fingers, the way she sat back and rubbed Shelby's clit with the perfect amount of pressure with her other hand, God--even the way she was looking down at Shelby--all seemed to be working out so much better than her other experiences with penetration.

At some point, the pulses of pleasure from Toni's hands joined and started rocking Shelby with something greater than the sum of its parts. She could hear herself, but she didn't have it in her to be embarrassed about the level of noise she was making, not when what she was feeling was this good. Fuck—she hadn’t known it could be this good. Shelby knew she was going to come hard before she did, gasping and trembling with the force of it, clenching around Toni's fingers, clit pulsing under her thumb, but she was still somewhat shocked as she caught her breath through the aftershocks.

Toni lowered herself down to Shelby and Shelby drew her arm away from her face and used it to draw Toni close. “So good,” she muttered quietly, absently stroking Toni’s back. Was it really a requirement to ever get up from this bed, or to leave this moment? She definitely didn’t want to move—it was a delight to even lay here holding Toni. After a few minutes where Shelby finally understood the notion of “afterglow,” though, Toni broke the silence, moving away to study Shelby’s face. 

“You’re okay, right?”

“I am now,” Shelby replied; it felt like the truth. 

—

They shared a quick meal (the best in recent memory, for Shelby at least), one with more teasing and talking than eating, and then Toni had to leave. When Shelby drove them back to Toni’s place, she was thoughtful enough to invite Shelby in to kiss her goodbye rather than risking it in the open.

Shelby was pretty sure what they'd done was written all over her face, but she appreciated the gesture.

Sunday arrived and Shelby was up earlier than usual to bake cookies from the frozen dough she'd made in advance. Her mood was amazing, frankly, and it could only be attributed to her incredible day yesterday. She was just barely starting to taste freedom, she knew, but damn it felt good even like this. The distinct lack of Andrew had something to do with it as well, probably. With him gone, she could almost pretend Toni was simply her girlfriend if she tried hard enough. 

The mood buoyed her through morning service, even though sitting near, but not quite _with,_ her family amid the congregation tempered it. What Toni had said was working wonders, and frankly, her mind was back in her kitchen with Toni, not as focused on the sermon as she maybe should have been. 

_”You want some unsolicited advice? You can say no,” Toni said._

_“I could probably use whatever you wanna give me, honestly.”_

_“If they threaten you with excommunication or whatever,” Toni joked, attempting to keep things relatively light, “you actually can turn it back on them. Make them fear your rejection if they refuse to accept you, if that makes sense.”_

_“It does,” Shelby said, thinking it over. “I…don’t know exactly how to manage that but…it’s a good idea.” She was pretty sure it would just end in mutual rejection with her family and everyone else, but it made her feel like she had some control to frame things that way._

After service, she went out to the table that had been prepared in advance. Kristen was already there, transacting with the members of the congregation. Shelby looked over the assortment of goods others had brought.

"Looks like we've got a great spread," she said, gaining Kristen's attention. She hadn't really interacted with her since she ran out on her in the café. Kristen seemed unfazed as she smiled at Shelby.

"Absolutely--everything you made looks especially good, Shelby," Kristen replied, sending Shelby an impressed look. Shelby thanked her and got into the groove of helping. The two older women were accompanied by two younger members of the church actually slated to go on the trip.

They actually sold most of their goods; many of the church members seemed keen to support the cause and walk away with treats to boot. Kristen helped herself to a few of the leftovers and invited Shelby on a brief walk through the park, offering to drive the brief distance over.

They spoke about the sermon briefly before Kristen steered the conversation to her brand.

"I've been thinking: you know all that drama about the deleted articles? Maybe we should, well, not repost them, but write some new ones soon."

For the first time that day, Shelby began to truly feel uneasy. "Why?"

"I just think maybe deleting the articles was the wrong thing for us to do. Like, yes, all the backlash is hard but that's what we're called to, you know? The world is going to hate us for speaking the truth, that's just how things work for us. And with so-called ‘Pride Month’ coming up, it would be good to have some godly messaging out there for our followers that…might need it," Kirsten explained.

Shelby was already starting to wish she had said no to Kristen's invitation. "Well, I guess you outta do what you think is best."

Kristen looked at Shelby, but Shelby wasn't going to look back. "Yeah..." Kristen said, trailing off. Shelby was pretty sure even that response had her fucked. "Hey, would you want to write anything for us? We have guest posts, sometimes."

"Oh, I'm not much of a writer," Shelby said, unsure how to get out of this one.

Kristen laughed. "Neither was I, but that's what editing is for, after all. I get if you don't want to, the topic is...tough."

No kidding. "Yeah," Shelby said, swallowing down the urge to tell Kristen that in reality, she didn't actually have to most of what she felt compelled to for her brand.

"Like, ideally, I could get someone with areally good testimony around their same-sex attraction to write something, or maybe even do a video, but I don't know anyone--and it's not the sort of thing you ask about, you know?" Kristen carried on.

"Maybe you could try just putting yourself in their shoes," Shelby replied, attempting to numb herself to the fact that Kristen didn't seem to want to let this go.

Kristen made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “I don’t think I could manage to look at the world from the eyes of someone…like that.”

“Then it doesn’t seem like the best idea to me to write anything.” Shelby’s tone slipped into audible agitation, and she tensed, waiting for Kristen’s reaction.

“I just don’t think that’s an option, Shelby. I mean there are vulnerable girls being taken in by the homosexual agenda, tempted away from the Lord,” Kristen shook her head, stricken. Shelby stopped walking and spoke up when she broke off to search for whatever she was going to say next. 

“I don’t want to discuss this with you anymore, Kristen. I...” Shelby trailed off. She was aware that she was probably saying too much, but she’d be damned if she was going to give Kristen advice on this. especially when she put things like that. 

“Woah—why?” Kristen paused there, but Shelby had no answer. “Well…I mean, maybe I should just call Jackie?” Kristen offered. Shelby had to draw in a deep breath at the mention of the author of one of the books that had weighed on her consciousness the most through her late teen years. Shelby was looking into the distance, but she knew that Kristen was studying her. Despite years of practice combatting showing them, her discomfort and upset were almost definitely revealing themselves in her body language and expression. 

“Maybe,” was all Shelby could say. Kristen started walking again and stayed quiet as they reached the final stretch of the small loop they’d been following.

Shelby had nothing to say either, sure she’d been basically found out as someone with “same-sex attraction.” Kristen cleared her throat as she started her car and drove them back to the church, and they shared an overly polite goodbye marked by mirrored, forced smiles.

—

So Kristen definitely knew.

Shelby, on the other hand, knew she probably wouldn’t say a thing to anyone because the taboo topic. Sure, Kristen could (probably over-) share parts of her own sexuality, but homosexuality was another level. Like nine levels deeper in terms of taboo for them. In a strange way, homophobia was probably protecting her in this instance. So the whole thing would go unspoken, but felt, and it wasn’t how Shelby had planned for _anyone_ to…find out about her, but this was definitely not as bad as it could have been. It was just one person, at least.

She geared up for her workout and savored it; it felt good to get out a little frustration and anxiety, and by the time she arrived, most of the tension from earlier had dissipated. Seeing Toni was a treat, too, though the fact that they were in public made things a little difficult. Well, “a little” might be an understatement as a new kind of tension took root in her during her workout. It had kind of become a pattern, one Shelby couldn’t really ignore anymore. Something about Toni watching her—especially ever since they’d become intimate—really got her going.

Yes, Shelby was definitely having some kind of sexual awakening (also taboo), though she’d never been quite as deeply repressed as some of her peers. At least she wasn’t welling up with guilt and dread over it; she was actually…kind of excited and curious? And of course, she’d probably end up enjoying herself exploring those feelings later, too, so while she was paying for them with her reddened face now, it felt like a secret win-win overall.

—

Thankfully she wouldn't need to see Kristen for the week--if they really needed to talk to organize something, they could always just use their phones.

Andrew came back on Tuesday morning. Everything about his return was normal until, while he just starting his shower and Shelby decided to start to unpack his suitcase (which would certainly sit for days otherwise), his phone went off on the bed. Shelby looked out of force of habit; they shared the same default notification sound that like 80% of the population did--who could blame her?

It ended up being a holy grail of an accident--the notification was about a message from some feminine username on Snap, which Shelby wasn't even aware Andrew was on (not that she had really been keeping tabs). She looked over at the bathroom door, but the shower was on and there was almost no way that Andrew had heard his own phone. When she tapped the little banner, what she saw was like a gift from God. Quickly, Shelby took off with both of their phones, careful not to let Andrew's lock.

She had at least ten minutes, maybe longer if Andrew wondered where his phone was and figured he'd just left it elsewhere in the house or in his car. Shelby went out to the deck, and started scrolling and screenshotting. There were a few women he seemed to be in contact with; Tinder, Snap, and even his own text messages all full of a bounty of evidence that her good Christian husband was quite the cheat.

Shelby imagined she might be the only wife in history to feel so much relief and glee when faced with incontrovertible proof that their husband was really getting around with other women. But it was the perfect out; and honestly, it made a lot of sense. The fact that she hadn't worried about this before, and couldn't even drum up one negative feeling about it in this moment (apart from some disgust at what she'd had to read and look at) were very telling.

And of course, there was the fact that she hadn’t exactly been faithful, recently.

In the end, she sent a whole lot of screenshots to her cellphone and her email through Andrew's phone, and it was only when she heard that blessed _woosh_ indicating that the messages were sent, at last, that she got up and turned to go back into the house. She'd been sitting in a spot hard to see from the house with the way everything was set up, just in case.

When she slid the back door open and stepped back into the house, Andrew was downstairs, dressed, keys in hand. He looked back at Shelby but did a double take, and when he saw both phones in her hand, stopped cold. 

Shelby couldn’t blame him when he tried to play things cool.

“Oh,” Andrew started (it was actually maybe even impressive how convincingly calm his tone of voice was). “I was just looking for my phone.”

She didn’t move when he held his hand out for it, just walked over to the counter and set both on it before leaning back on it and folding her arms. Shelby shook her head and leveled him with a serious look, hoping to convey that he should give up the charade. The sooner he did, the sooner she could stop with her charade.

“I think I know why,” Shelby said. “Look, Andrew, I saw some things I’m pretty sure you didn’t want me to see. We both know what’s going on here, now.”

Andrew looked away, jaw working, probably considering his options. Eventually he blew out a deep breath and looked back at Shelby, taking stock of her. “I mean, do you? Shouldn’t you be screaming mad?”

“You know I don’t do anger.”

“You don’t do me either,” Andrew quipped.

Shelby scoffed, doing her best to ignore that one. Going there was definitely not in her best interest. “Andrew—I’m not gonna fight about this, alright? We’re done,” she said, grabbing his phone and holding it out to him. He glared at her suspiciously for a long moment, then took it and stood there, eyes still on Shelby. “You know it’s for the best.”

“Shelby, look, can’t we work something out? We’re way too young to be—can’t you think of what people are gonna think if we do this? Of me?” Andrew said, sounding upset. He did have a point—no one got divorced in their community unless some serious shit was going down. As the man, the head of the marriage, people would definitely gossip something fierce.

“I can’t let what people think control what I do anymore, Andy,” Shelby admitted. “Ain’t worth it. You really telling me you want to stay in this marriage the rest of your life? We’re a couple years in and this is how it’s going,” Shelby gestured between them, hoping to convey some sense of “clusterfuck” with her hands.

Andrew said nothing, and after some time, Shelby walked past him and worked off her wedding ring in the guest bedroom, where she figured she’d be sleeping from now on. It was still far too early to head to the gym, and Shelby wasn’t even sure how she felt about carrying on like this was a normal day. The circumstances were pushing her away from going, but the prospect of seeing Toni pulled her back in.

Shelby decided to drive over to her parents’; she’d probably get to speak to her mom at least. Unsure what the conversation would yield, she decided to shoot Toni a text.

\- 10:10 - _I don’t think i can make it today [deep frown emoji]_

\- 10:10 - _Are you free later?_

After scaring her mom a bit by using her key to get in to their place, Shelby found herself floundering for the words to get the conversation started as her mother asked her how she was doing (was “fine” the truth?). What would they think about her bringing this up in light of what happened last time she saw them? All she could do was push the worries away and focus on the fact that it was just her mom; that made things considerably easier. Maybe if she just highlighted the cheating and everything—a few choice screenshots would probably help—they’d understand the issue to be Andrew, not Shelby.

“What brings you here, sweetie? Not that I mind seein’ you,” Jobeth said, smiling at Shelby after a hug. Shelby had found her in Spencer’s room putting his freshly laundered clothes away.

Shelby sat on the bed. looking around her little brother’s room. Finally, she sighed and dove in, ignoring the small, but present, pit in her stomach. “I need to talk to you about somethin’ important.”

Jobeth paused and turned to look right at Shelby, gathering that whatever was going on merited more of her attention. “What is it, honey?”

“Andrew…I found out he’s been, well, he’s been cheatin’ on me for a while.” Shelby sighed, watching her mother’s reaction of shock morph into displeasure.

“I—I can’t believe it,” Jobeth said, coming to sit next to her daughter, concerned gaze locked in on Shelby.

“Well, I’ve got a lot of proof. Unfortunately.”

“I…I see,” Jobeth said haltingly, likely trying to avoid conjuring up whatever Shelby had seen. “When did you find out?”

“Maybe an hour or so ago? I don’t know.”

“Oh Shelby,” Jobeth said, looking heartbroken (her mother never held on to anger long, if at all), moving to draw Shelby into an embrace. “I guess it hasn’t hit you, yet, has it?”

“I guess not,” Shelby acquiesced, though she was sure it wouldn’t really “hit her” in the way her mother was expecting. They stayed like that for a long moment, and Shelby took the support her mother offered, glad for it, even if she hadn’t really gotten to the point yet. And Shelby cherished the feeling of simply hugging her mom in the way she was noticing and appreciating the things she might not have forever lately.

“Look, I’ve had some friends go through similar things, I can ask ‘em for the names of the counselors they saw—“ Jobeth began, but stopped when she saw Shelby shaking her head.

“Mom, we’re gettin’ a divorce,” Shelby said, and knew from the way that her mother’s face shifted that she wasn’t on board with that…which meant Shelby had a problem.

If Andrew decided to contest, she’d need to pay legal fees—if her parents were against a divorce, she had no way to do that without going deep into debt, and even then, it might not end up being worth it. Shelby wasn’t counting on Andrew fighting her, but it was still a possibility.

“Shelby,” her mother said, voice taking on a pleading edge. “You don’t think you might be overreacting? Marriage is bigger than a few mistakes, and you just found out about this. We should—why don’t you come back, talk about this with your father and I? Maybe bring Andy?”

Shelby knew she wasn’t getting anything more out of the conversation if her mom was defaulting to waiting on her father. “I’ll come back, but not with Andrew.”

In her car, Shelby checked her phone out of habit and a need to do something with her disappointment.

**Toni** \- 10:32 - _for you, yeah_

**Toni** \- 10:32 - _you wanna come over? i’ll be home at like 6_

Shelby breathed a sigh, relieved that Toni had offered (and had seemingly remembered that Andrew would be back today).

\- 10:59 - _I’d love that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was getting really, really long--almost had to split it in two, but the magic of editing saved the day. i will be back to wrap this up with the last update asap! also there's an extra epilogue/companion oneshot in the works, too, so i won't be quite done with this AU after the final chapter.
> 
> i'm gaywristwatch on tumblr if you want to talk :)


	8. how to live authentically in a god-honoring way

Andrew was nowhere to be found when Shelby got back to her place. She ended up spending a couple of hours researching what she’d need to do for a divorce in the first place; to her relief, it seemed like a few things would work out for her. One: all the paper-signing rigamarole that usually ended up complicating divorces for months on end on TV didn’t apply; Texas was a no-fault state. She could divorce Andrew without worrying about him necessarily agreeing to it. Two: because their marriage was pretty barebones—no children, only the house and a couple cars to worry about—things should actually be pretty simple to untangle. And thankfully (another TV-real life discrepancy) it should also go by pretty quickly once they got to court.

Learning all of that took a load off her back, it felt like, and she found she was feeling better about the near future. She did know, however, that the conversation with her parents was probably not going to be a pleasant experience, and a knot of anxiety coiled in her gut as the clock ticked closer to the time she’d need to be there. Her mother had texted (to no reply) that her father would be home around 4. 

Shelby wondered if Spence and Melody would be around. She wondered, not for the first time, if they knew what was really going on with her. The stuff with Becca had happened when they were pretty young, but kids were also surprisingly perceptive.

Unable to eat and with no one to talk to about this at the moment, Shelby ended up in the car earlier than she need to be. She was almost desperate to just get the whole thing over with, because as much as she didn’t want to think about it—this conversation could be it. Before she left, Shelby looked herself in the eye in the mirror and tried to steel herself.

She wouldn’t let her parents cajole her into staying in a marriage that wasn’t working—one that couldn’t work.

That was the easy one.

Next: she wouldn’t let them threaten her with being cut off if her sexuality came up—she had to take it into her hands. God, it fucking hurt but she was already practically alone in the ways that counted, despite her father’s conception that it was sin that caused people to be alone.

The last one had her wiping tears away and blinking more back as well as she could. Finally: she would go see Mel and Spence first if they were home, just in case.

—

Dave Goodkind opened the door for Shelby as she was walking up and deciding whether to use her key or knock. His face was impassive, but Shelby was guessing that meant he already knew what she’d told her mother already. Still, she offered him a greeting as he stepped back to let her through the doorway. He didn’t say anything back, and Shelby kept herself from looking back at him as she looked up the stairs and said (desperate to seem casual, and even more desperate to avoid seeming like she was asking permission): “I’m just gonna go upstairs for a sec.”

“Fine,” Dave said, and she made her way upstairs. Melody was in Spencer’s room with him, both apparently working on homework.

She didn’t want to scare her siblings, so she kept things light—just a few minutes talking about school and their hobbies. Just checking in, it would seem, but Shelby pressed a kiss onto both of their heads and had to practically fly out of the room to keep from giving herself away by getting too emotional. After a moment, she walked back down the steps, and found her father waiting for her with folded arms outside of the room her mother was waiting in.

Shelby fidgeted with her hands in the couple of silent seconds it took for her father to close the french doors behind them, sit beside her mother, and look up at Shelby. She felt like she couldn’t move until he nodded, indicating that she should sit.

She did, and it was a minute relief to do so—she was almost dizzy with her anxiety. Shelby swallowed, drawing in a deep breath in a mostly-futile attempt to center herself.

“Did mom tell you what happened this mornin’?”

“Well, she told me you caught Andrew bein’ unfaithful.”

“I did. And I—I…we talked, and we agreed that we should end the marriage.”

Dave took his time to reply to that, bowing his head for a moment. “Shelby, I’ve seen a lot more marriages and their problems than you, and I honestly have to say: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone in the church so eager to dissolve a marriage.”

Shelby stayed quiet.

Jobeth spoke up. “What exactly happened? Is there more you haven’t told us?”

Shelby scoffed lightly. As far as practically anyone else was concerned, Shelby was sure, what she had seen was enough. Her parents were the apparent exception. “What, you want to see the photos?”

“Don’t be crass, Shelby. It’s—you’re right, I suppose that’s really between the two of you,” Dave said.

Shelby decided to try to steer the conversation back to where it should be going. “Look, mom—I understand you think we can work it out, but that’s just not what either of us wants. I’m sorry, I know it’s sudden…”

Dave jumped in. “Why don’t you want it? And what is goin’ so wrong that Andrew is doin’ this?”

Shelby blinked at the implicit accusation. “You’re blamin’ me for this?”

“Shelby—“ Dave cut himself off. “We both—we all know that there’s potential for some…foul play here. If you want to play coy, I’ll just be up front. Have you let your--your unnatural desires come in between you and Andrew and your vows to God?”

Jobeth looked away, but her father was staring her down as her mind tore through her options to find something to say that would work (it couldn’t be a lie, she’d never been capable of getting a lie past the man, and it couldn’t be some weak wishy-washy reply that was a dead giveaway either). “Daddy, I don’t see how you would ever think it _wasn’t_ that,” Shelby finally said.

“Well, you can’t say I don’t have good reason.”

Silence filled the room. In the interim, Shelby felt herself come back down to herself from the rapture of their volley somewhat; she could feel her heart pounding and the way she was carrying the tension in her body. While she could, even if just for a second, she tried to consciously relax where she’d tensed up and breathe.

Jobeth spoke again next. “Honey, we just don’t want you to be makin’ a big mistake. What will happen after this if you go through with it?” ‘ _How will you find another husband_?’ was probably next, Shelby thought, but:

Dave broke in. “Bottom line, we think it’s best you stay.”

“You think it’s better that I stay in a marriage neither of us wants to be in anymore?”

“You can work on that, honey. Marriage is hard work—“ Jobeth opined, and Shelby sensed she was about to start with the platitudes and anecdotes about marriage she’d heard so often even before getting married herself.

“And this one isn’t worth it,” Shelby cut in, not quite snapping at her mother, but speaking more sharply than she had to the woman in a long time. She took a steadying breath. Maybe if she kept doing that, she’d survive this. “ _My_ bottom line is that we aren’t happy. Either of us—I think we deserve that at least.”

“Those your words or Andrew’s? You know, I couldn’t get a hold of him all day today. Really, I have no idea if any of this is true, or what his side of the story is,” Dave said. He waited a beat, searched Shelby’s eyes. “What’s he gonna tell me about what kind’a wife you were to him, Shelby?”

Shelby stood, suddenly feeling overwhelmed, and turned her back on her parents to collect herself for a few seconds. “Daddy, I tried,” Shelby got out eventually.

Dave nodded, frustratingly calm as he appraised her. “Not hard enough, I don’t think,” he muttered. 

That was what broke Shelby. She lost her fight against the tears and all at once they ran hot and quick down her face before slowing. “I don’t understand this,” Shelby said, forcing the words out. “I don’t—how can you say I haven’t tried hard enough after what you put me through? I’ve tried everything, and as hard as I could…” Shelby couldn’t take the sight of her mother crying silently now, too, or the weight of her father’s stare. “I can’t force myself to love Andy, or men, and I was sure as hell not going to keep forcing myself to—to be intimate with him.” 

She looked up, throat working as she wiped some of the tears from her cheeks and jaw. “Nothing’s going to change me, daddy. Nothing’s gonna stop me from lovin’ women, and nothing’s gonna make me start lovin’ men the way you both want me to,” Shelby said, feeling ready to storm out of those glass doors and out of the house.

Her parents said nothing. Dave had his head in one hand, jaw tense. Jobeth met Shelby’s eyes for a handful of agonizing seconds, but then her eyes went to her husband, and then to the floor.

Drained as she was starting to feel after that, Shelby knew she had to take this chance to do what Toni had said, what she’d told herself she would try. “If you can’t accept that I can’t keep playing this charade to keep you in my life. I…I really hope you can someday.”

Shelby moved for the doors and reached for the handles, hand trembling. “Shelby,” her father called, “if you leave, that’s it. You don’t come back here until you’re ready to repent and fix this!”

She took a long look back at her parents, eyes lingering on her mother’s broken form. Jobeth was openly, steadily weeping now, like she was at a funeral. “Then I guess that’s it.”

Shelby tossed a look up at the stairs, hoping Melody or Spencer had heard they were arguing and come to listen at the top of the steps like she had so long ago.

She was up the stairs in a flash when she saw them both, and brought them into her arms as best she could on the stairs. “What’s going on?” Spencer’s raspy voice seemed to remind her all at once that he was growing up and she’d most likely miss a lot of it, now.

“I—“ Shelby scrambled for an explanation. She didn’t want to let her parents completely control what they thought of her, but she knew that was probably inevitable, so she switched gears. “Listen, no matter what: I love you. I love you both, okay?”

Shelby didn’t have time to hear a response or elaborate, because she heard the doors fly open suddenly. Her parents must have realized that the front door hadn’t opened and she hadn’t left yet. Her father stormed around the corner of the staircase, folded his arms, and glared up at his children. “You are pushin’ it, Shelby!” He wasn’t the type to yell, but he was getting close.

Shelby turned to her brother and sister, choked out an “I love you,” walked down the stairs—using every bit of pageant training to keep her composure as she walked past her father—and stepped past the threshold when he yanked the door open to usher her out. The change from cool, conditioned air to the natural Texas heat was jarring, but she didn’t look back as she walked to her car and drove away as soon as she could.

—

It was about 5 o’clock when Shelby made it back to her house, and it was exactly 5:13 when she looked at the clock when she felt like she was finally done crying. She headed toward the shower, hoping it’d help her calm down, maybe reset a little, and ease the tension headache that had sprung up in the past few minutes (and stop her subtle trembling).

Shelby went back and forth on makeup for a minute, but knew it would probably be useless to even put it on. She gravitated toward a comfortable outfit, forced down some water, and sat outside to try to collect herself before she had to go. In the end she wound up practically meditating, focusing on her breath and trying to stay present to avoid spiraling, praying intermittently.

When she got up to drive to Toni’s the exhaustion hit her, but not going wasn’t an option. If Shelby had ever needed support, it was in this moment. She made her way over, and when Toni opened the door, she wondered in the second before Toni really saw her what their night together would look like. Shelby hadn’t said a word about what had happened (or that it was going to happen) to her, and Toni was probably ready for a good time getting to know Shelby better.

Shelby was used to pretending in life, but she didn’t have it in her—today of all days—to act like nothing was wrong.

Toni blinked away mild shock just after she took in Shelby’s appearance. Her voice was all tender concern when she said: “Hey, are you alright?” The question alone made Shelby feel weak again, like she was about to break into an unwelcome crying jag if she attempted to answer. Toni seemed to read her, and drew her into the house gently, hand hesitating at first, before it landed on Shelby’s shoulder.

“Shelby?”

Shelby was almost totally inclined to just let the tears take over for a while, but she didn’t want to alarm Toni any more than necessary. It took a moment, but she got a handful of words out.

“I told them about the divorce,” Shelby paused, already choked out again. “And that—that they have to accept me or—“

Then Shelby felt the relief of Toni’s arms coming to wrap around her for a long moment. She didn’t bother filling out the rest of the story, instead giving in to the wash of emotions as Toni whispered how proud she was of Shelby (and how brave she thought Shelby was, and how she was going to okay).

They ended up on Toni’s couch, where she’d had the smart TV set up for a movie or something, probably. Instead, Toni was listening to Shelby as she told her everything that had happened. Shelby was half on her lap, head on Toni’s shoulder (it was easier to talk without seeing Toni’s facial expressions reacting). Keeping her focus on the way Toni’s thumb stroked at her skin where they held hands helped her get through her story.

And when she broke into tears again near the end of it, Toni held her and told her how wrong it all was. She told Shelby what she deserved instead. When she felt like she was finally fucking cried out, Shelby asked for the restroom and walked into it, closing the door gently. The cold water from the sink on her face was a blessing if she’d ever had one; she came up from bending over the sink and stared into the mirror feeling like that alone had completed some process of making her new.

She realized she needed a towel, and after some hesitation, called out to ask Toni for one. When she’d patted her face dry, door to the bathroom open, she looked up and found Toni watching her. Shelby’s eyes darted to the mirror and she rushed to smooth down her eyebrows and hair, then smiled shyly at Toni, who was giving her a bit of a strange look.

“What?”

“Nothing, gorgeous.” 

Shelby didn’t have time to be bashful about the compliment because Toni took Shelby’s hand and led them both back to the couch. Neither moved to let go once they settled, and there was a long stretch of time where they just looked at each other. Shelby reached up to touch Toni’s cheek, then her jaw, in disbelief that _this_ was where she had ended up. Toni leaned into the touch with a smile and ended up breaking the silence after a few seconds of a thoughtful look creeping onto her face.

“You up for some food? I bet you haven’t eaten with the day you’ve had.”

They ended up with tacos from Toni’s favorite place. Shelby had already known that she wouldn’t ever forget this day, but it’s not going to be _just_ a cataclysm in her mind anymore. She’ll remember learning little things about Toni (she loves spice, and harbored a serious affinity for Takis in high school) and how Toni teased her for Shelby being nearly the opposite (and the way that, at first, Toni checked silently that it was alright to joke around with Shelby).

—

Shelby couldn’t stay; she still didn’t know where Andrew was regarding the divorce yet, which meant she couldn’t chance it. So Shelby got back in her car, drove, and arrived home in an immeasurably better state than when she’d driven away.

Andrew wasn’t around when she got home, and was still nowhere to be found when she went to bed, but she figured he was staying at a friend’s house or something. She didn’t feel cause to worry; the chances that he was torn up and drinking himself into oblivion or something were null. 

He was back in the morning; Shelby woke suddenly, unconsciously realizing there was someone in the house that she’d fallen asleep alone in. She followed the noise to--(their? his?)—the master bedroom, and found Andrew getting ready for work in the dim morning light.

“Oh, you’re back,” Shelby said, voice rough from sleep and, well, the emotionally fraught day before.

“Yep,” Andrew popped the ‘p’ as he worked on his tie. When he was done, he looked at Shelby and sighed. “You uh, gonna handle the papers or whatever? I don’t know how this is supposed to work.”

“On it.”

Andrew nodded, then looked away and stuffed his wallet and phone into his pockets. “Good thing we don’t have kids, huh?”

Shelby didn’t really laugh, but she tried. “Yeah, no kiddin’.” They were quiet; Andrew was probably just as bereft of things to say as she was.

“…I guess we’ll talk more later. See you,” Andrew murmured, passing her in the doorway and making his way out of the house without another word.

Shelby listened to him drive away, wondering if she ought to tell him the whole truth.

—

Shelby decided to approach Andrew after he got home. She’d spent the day moving her things into the guest room and working on the petition for divorce. Moving to a different room in the house was grounding, and at least on the marriage side of things, she was glad when it started to take shape and feel real. They’d have to wait over sixty days to actually have the divorce granted once they filed, but Shelby figured that would be a formality for the both of them.

The less positive side was that she’d had a whole hell of a lot of time to think about the consequences of yesterday as she moved clothes and toiletries and whatnot. She had no idea what she would’ve done without Toni, but she was still (understandably) down about her parents’ rejection and losing her siblings.

She caught Andrew in the middle of loosening his tie when she came downstairs. Figuring food would function as a good olive branch, she asked if he wanted anything and prepared a plate for him. Shelby took a seat across their dining room table and decided this was as good a time as any.

“We can talk about this later if you want, but, I wanted to let you know I’m just gonna file under insupportability,” Shelby said.

Andrew, mouth full, nodded. “Alright.”

“And I just, I guess I need to update you on something.”

Andrew kept eating, but looked at her expectantly. She met his eyes for a few seconds, feeling unease creep in, but went for it anyway. Their marriage was over—what was the worst that could happen?

“I went over to tell my parents about us yesterday and they’re not happy about it.”

“I did get like 30 calls from each of them, so I figured.”

“Right. And we’re not…talking anymore. Probably won’t for a while.”

“They’re that mad?” Andrew seemed puzzled; he rested his fork on his plate and waited for Shelby to respond.

“Well, maybe, but the real problem for them is I’m—“ Shelby sighed. Hopefully it would get easier to actually say the words with time. “I’m gay.”

Andrew leaned back and went through several facial expressions that were all a variation on a theme of “deep confusion.” When he didn’t say anything after a while, Shelby kept going.

“I’m....also sorry, Andrew. I thought I could be with you, I thought things would change with time—“ Shelby ran out of words and went silent, waiting for whatever Andrew would do. 

“Just—relax, Shelby. At least right now,” he huffed out a laugh, “that actually makes me feel a hell of a lot better about the whole sex thing. I thought you were like, asexual or something.” It was obvious that he didn’t mean that as any kind of legitimate identity—more as some ridiculous impossibility.

Shelby couldn’t bring herself to laugh with him. She waited for whatever would come next, sensing that he wasn’t quite done.

“I mean, I feel dumb for not figuring that out earlier, because it makes perfect sense. Though you don’t really look like a lesbo, so I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself.”

Shelby rolled her eyes, and moved to get up.

“Wait, wait, I’m sorry,” Andrew said quickly, laughing for real now (and maybe with a little touch of the unhinged? or was it just relief? Either way, it definitely sapped the sincerity from his apology). Shelby waited, folding her arms as he went on. “I know that’s not PC or whatever. But uh, thanks for telling me. And don’t take this the wrong way either but, you’re a much better Christian than me. I get that we were both just doing what we felt like we had to.”

Shelby blinked, surprised by the rare sliver of insight from Andrew. “…Thank you.”

“And I may not get the whole gay thing—never have—but I think it’s…fine, you know, if that’s how you are. So, uh. Your parents are…way overreacting,” Andrew scoffed, and mumbled: “God knows I couldn’t stop being straight if I tried.”

Shelby wasn’t sure what, exactly, to think of all that, but she knew it was likely the best she was going to get out of the conversation. He’d definitely exceeded her low expectations. And then she’d never have to speak about this with him again, hopefully. Andrew was looking up at her, so she nodded, sent him a tight smile, and left.

—

And within a couple more days, with the petition filed, the world felt wide open for Shelby. She and Andrew decided to continue to live in their house for the moment, but Shelby ended up putting her foot down, explaining that she wouldn’t be doing his laundry or cooking for him any longer. There were still a few things to figure out, money- and property-wise, but Shelby was confident that it’d all work out.

Things had changed, almost on the turn of a dime it felt like, and Shelby almost felt dizzy from the reality of her freedom. She had a date lined up with Toni next week, had sent out an obscene number of job applications, and for the first time, she was headed to a different church on another beautiful (hot) Texas Sunday. The church was a bit of a ways away, but something told Shelby it'd be worth it.

She’d even started the hunt for a therapist on Toni’s gentle, but glowing recommendation (“Just ask Marty—it really helped me”).

Shelby turned down the music she’d been singing along to and stepped out of the car to approach the building. It definitely had some of that church charm—there was a little stained glass adorning the small brick building, and there was even more than she realized when she made it inside. Two sights caught her attention as she looked around: a woman stationed at the front, smiling at her, and a rainbow flag hanging on one of the church’s walls. The flag felt incongruous to her, naturally, but it felt amazing to see all the same. Shelby almost couldn’t take her eyes off the thing as the woman greeted her.

“Welcome! I’m Julie. So glad to see you this mornin’!” The woman’s cheerfulness sparked a smile in Shelby.

“Thanks…I’m happy to be here too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first, thanks for reading!! it’s not perfect, but i am a little proud that i finally finished a multichapter story at last. i would love to hear feedback here in the comments or on my tumblr(gaywristwatch). thanks so much, again, to the people that have sent encouragement and compliments in the comments. some of you are hilarious lol.
> 
> loose ends/follow up will appear in the (hopefully) fluffy, cathartic epilogue :)


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